


love on the telephone

by tempestbreak



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Dick riding, Dirty Talk, Fantasizing, Felching, M/M, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, Phone Sex, Porn with Feelings, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Praise Kink, Public Masturbation, Rimming, Service Top Richie Tozier, Sex Toys, Spooning, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24193999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak
Summary: “So… what are you wearing?”“You’ve got to be kidding me.”Richie laughs on the phone, delighted by Eddie’s deadpan dismay. “I’m only kidding if you’re offended.”“I’m not offended,” says Eddie. “It's just that phone sex isn’t a real thing.”Richie is quiet. “What do you mean, phone sex isn’t a real thing?”--Or: Richie goes away on tour. Eddie learns that phone sexisa real thing.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 154
Kudos: 910
Collections: Quarantine It Fic Fest





	love on the telephone

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: “They’re normally pretty vanilla, but once Richie leaves to go on tour Eddie gets unbearably horny and their phone and video sex gets progressively kinkier and the long distance makes them learn a lot of new things about each other.”

“So… what are you wearing?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

It’s a Thursday night, just barely nine o’clock in Los Angeles, and Richie has been on tour for twenty-four hours. Eddie is alone in Richie’s condo, which is quickly becoming _their_ condo, as Eddie’s things are gradually moved and unpacked on the weeks his work sends him to the Los Angeles office. Actually, he thinks, he should work on unpacking once he finishes prepping his meals for the next four days.

Richie laughs on the phone, delighted by Eddie’s deadpan dismay. “I’m only kidding if you’re offended.”

“I’m not offended,” says Eddie into the microphone of his earbuds as he measures out one-half tablespoon of olive oil per chicken breast and coats them. “I’m just confused.”

“It’s a pretty straightforward question.”

“Yeah, but it’s the, like, comedy phone sex question,” Eddie says, rinsing his hands before reaching for the salt and pepper, “and phone sex isn’t a real thing.”

Richie is quiet. “What do you mean, phone sex isn’t a real thing?”

“I _mean_ ,” Eddie goes on, sprinkling some salt and pepper, “it’s something that they made up for, like, sitcoms and shit but no one actually does it in real life. Like all your friends living in the same midtown Manhattan apartment building, or having sex standing up.”

Richie sputters out a high-pitched giggle. “Eds, man,” he laughs, “I mean, I’ll give it to you on the apartment thing, and we might have to circle back to standing-up sex, although in my experience it’s overrated, but… phone sex is absolutely, one thousand percent, a real thing.”

Eddie snorts in disbelief.

“It is! Why do you think they invented phones in the first place? Haven’t you seen that picture of the guy talking into the very first telephone? Looks like a big ol’ dick.”

Rolling his eyes, Eddie laughs. “All right, then, I’m willing to be convinced,” he says, utterly skeptical. “Phone sex me.”

“It would be my pleasure, Edward,” Richie says, smiling. “I ask again: What are you wearing?”

Eddie looks down at his getup. “I’m wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants,” he says.

“Ooh, yeah.”

“And oven mitts.”

“Is that because you’re too hot to handle?”

Eddie rolls his eyes but can’t contain a snort. “No, but the chicken will be in forty-five minutes.”

“Hmm.” Richie’s voice suggests he is taking whatever he can get. “So you’ve got some hot meat in your hands, is what you’re saying.”

“What are _you_ wearing?” Eddie asks, ignoring him.

“T-shirt and boxers,” Richie answers brightly, without hesitation. “And my dick is out through the little hole.”

Eddie laughs. “Ooh, very sexy.”

“I would say I’m at about a four-sevenths chub.”

“Even sexier.”

“But I’m touching myself while we talk, so I feel confident I can get that up to a full seven.”

Eddie swallows. For some reason, his mouth is a little dry. “Really? I’m not doing anything sexy. Just meal prep.”

“Your voice is sexy, though. And I’m talking about my dick and you’re not hanging up on me, which I think is extremely sexy, actually.”

“Oh,” says Eddie. He should say something more, he thinks, but nothing is coming to him.

Richie breaks the silence for him. “I really miss you, Eds,” he says, his voice dipping low, gravelly and earnest. It makes Eddie’s heart clench in his chest.

They’ve been apart before, of course, when Eddie has to work from the New York office. But when Eddie’s in Los Angeles, they’ve never been separated by more than a fifteen-minute drive. And for the past month and a half, since Richie, crying, confessed how he felt for Eddie and Eddie breathlessly confessed right back, any separation has felt ten times harder. The addition of a sexual component to their relationship three weeks ago has only made it even more excruciating.

“I miss you too, Rich,” Eddie tells him truthfully. “Things are very… quiet. Without you here.”

Richie laughs. “Well, I won’t say things are necessarily _quiet_ on tour, but I will say they’re a lot less fun.”

“I’m fun?” Eddie asks doubtfully.

“So much fun. You make everything better.”

Eddie’s chest is really feeling warm, now. Richie is making him miss him so much, just with his words. He can almost believe that Richie could use just his words to make him feel warm in a different way. _Almost_.

“Bet I would make it better if I was there,” Eddie quips, sliding the pan of chicken into the preheated oven. “You wouldn’t have to deal with my extremely poor phone sex form.”

Richie’s laugh is breathy, almost labored in Eddie’s ear, sending static down the line. It should be annoying, he thinks, but somehow it’s… actually kinda hot. “Yeah, I wish you were here,” Richie sighs. “Really. I do miss you so much, Eddie.”

“Miss you too,” Eddie says again.

“Yeah?” Richie’s breath hitches a little. Eddie wonders what that means, if it means he’s (Eddie blushes at himself for speculating) _stroking_ himself harder. Or just differently, changing up his grip.

“Yeah,” is all he says, focusing on setting the kitchen timer. Four. Five. Zero. Zero. Set.

“What would you wanna do if I was there?”

Eddie— draws a blank. He can picture the way they (he squirms) _do it_ : Eddie on his back in their bed, his knees slung over Richie’s elbows as Richie slides inside him, tender and deep, their faces buried in each other’s necks, stamping kisses along shoulders, confessing love over and over in the dark, Eddie finishing first and Richie shortly after. Eddie—way, way down in the heart that grew three sizes once he and Richie found each other again—finds it endlessly romantic, actually, the way he was led to believe sex should feel and never did.

That’s what he would like to do. _If_ Richie was there, and _if_ Eddie was feeling in the mood, which he… doesn’t _think_ he is. It’s hard to be in the mood when he’s in the middle of cooking. Richie knows this about him, that Eddie’s brain can’t change tacks like Richie’s does, that relaxing enough to feel truly in the moment is rare for him. The first time they (he gulps) _did it_ , it was an hours-long affair, with music and candles and one glass of red wine and Richie gently joking just enough to rein in Eddie’s racing thoughts. Eventually, Richie’s warm hands rubbing over his chest, his abdomen, his thighs, grounded him, and he was able to let go, but it was a process. It was a process every time afterwards, too—not helped by the endless train of _never been with another guy, too much trouble, why even bother_ that circles through Eddie’s brain—but getting easier.

“If you were here, we could… we could, uh—” he licks his lips “—have sex?” It sounds so lame, even as it makes him blush right up to his ears.

Richie _should_ laugh at it, but instead he kind of moans. Eddie wonders how it’s possible, when he’s so terrible at this.

“Yeah, we could,” Richie says. “I feel it’s my duty to tell you I’m touching myself for real now. Like, full-on.”

Eddie laughs a little. “I figured.”

“Is that okay?”

Eddie’s ears burn. Richie asking him permission is— very nice of him. Yes.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, because the last thing he wants to do is get Richie caught up in his vortex of sexual self-consciousness. “Yeah, of course. Please do.”

And he means it politely, but him asking Richie to _please_ touch himself draws another low grunt over the phone. Eddie’s spine is tingling. He focuses on wiping down the kitchen counter. Smelling lemon and disinfectant.

“Are _you_?” Richie asks, huskily. “I mean, I know you’re cooking, but do you think you… _could_ …?”

Eddie draws in a sharp breath, his stomach flipping. “I, uh.” He clears his throat. Lemon. Lysol. “I don’t know—”

“No pressure, Eds,” Richie says softly. “I just like to hear your voice. I just miss, _ah_ , everything about you right now.”

Eddie bites his lip. Richie’s little _ah_ rings in his ears. It sounded so— Well, it’s only that it sounded like it _escaped_. Like just the thought of Eddie, just his voice, was so intoxicating he couldn’t hold it in.

“I miss,” he says, suddenly raspy, “miss your… your arms.” And Eddie looks down at his own arms and realizes they’ve gone still, grasping the bunched paper towel against the counter. He begins working it over again vigorously. He’s in the _middle_ of something. He has chicken in the oven.

“Yeah? My arms?” Richie sounds eminently pleased at this.

“Your arms.”

“Mm,” Richie hums, “love putting my arms around you, Eddie. Feel so good when I’m, _mm_ , when I’m holding you.”

Warmth rushes through him. _Richie’s arms twined around him, under his knees, hands beneath his shoulder blades, Richie all around and inside him._

To his surprise, he twitches, down in his sweatpants. Okay, so maybe there is something to this whole phone sex thing after all. If only he could get his mind off his meal prep.

“Yeah,” he agrees—lamely, he feels. “What, uh, what would _you_ want to do, if you were here? Or if I was there, I guess. Either one.” He nearly smacks himself in the forehead. So fucking awkward.

“Would wanna touch you,” Richie says, and his voice sounds strained. “Wanna make you feel good.”

Eddie turns to the sink, flips on the tap. He has to wash the cutting boards. Hot water. Soap. Scrub. _Scrub_.

“You do,” he tells Richie, hands covered in suds, skin reddening.

“Yeah?” and Richie sounds so _broken_ by the idea, it makes Eddie want to turn the water freezing cold, splash it on his face, _cool down_. “I make you feel good, Eds?”

“You know you do,” he says, scrubbing hard, face burning. He’s growing unbearably warm. The hot water. The oven.

_Richie’s arms around him in the dark. Richie’s hand stealing between their stomachs to wrap around Eddie. Richie’s mouth on his to swallow the noises Eddie makes as he spills against their chests._

“I always…” Eddie swallows around a lump in his throat, eyes unfocusing. Suds up his arms. “You always make me… you know…”

“God, _yeah_ ,” Richie groans, so _loud_ in Eddie’s ear it sets him shivering, and then he chokes out: “I fucking love watching you get off, Eds, the way you look, the way you sound when I’m— _oh_ —”

And he knows Richie is coming on the other line but he can hear it only distantly because without warning his blood is screaming in his veins, flooding down, _down_ , pooling hot between his thighs, so he has to grip the edge of the sink and _crush_ himself against the dishtowels, suddenly rock-hard and throbbing.

_Richie lifting up off his chest to sit back on his knees. Richie gripping Eddie’s hip with one hand, holding him steady so he can thrust into him. Richie curling his long fingers around Eddie’s leaking length and dragging the orgasm from him, while he— while he_ watches—

The images bubble up unbidden, overlapping and frantic, from the deep pool of Eddie’s imagination. They’re not memories; they’ve never (Eddie licks his lips, squeezing his eyes shut and grinding himself forward) _done it_ like that, with Richie looking down at him, Richie _watching_ him. Richie said he loves watching but he can’t really _know_ that, he hasn’t really _watched_ because it’s only ever been dark in the room, and Richie without his glasses, but something about the idea of Richie (Eddie gasps, pulsing in his pants) _watching him get off_ , it’s—

“Whew,” Richie chuckles.

Eddie freezes, staring down at his white, soaped-up knuckles gripping the counter. He can feel his blood throbbing between his legs, pinned against the plaid linen.

“That was, uh… much needed, I think,” Richie says. “I’m sorry if that was awkward for you, Eds.” And he sounds truly contrite.

Eddie swallows, attempting to get a grip. “N-no,” he stammers, eyes clenched. _Quite the fucking opposite; in fact, I think I really, really_ liked _—_ “It wasn’t.”

“You sure?” Richie’s voice is soft, uncertain.

“Yes, very,” Eddie grits out. He slaps at the handle on the tap until the water finally turns off. “I, uh— liked… listening.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes.” Eddie’s teeth are clenched so tightly, he can feel his jaw getting sore. He wants to open his mouth and _tell_ Richie, tell him— what?

_I’m hard as fucking diamond right now, and I’m gonna blow all over our dishrags if I don’t get a fucking hold of myself, all because you said you love to_ watch me _—_

“Well,” Richie says, “great.” He yawns and groans a little, and Eddie can practically _feel_ him stretching out languidly on the bed. “Guess I should let you get back to your chicken.”

_Fuck the chicken_ , Eddie thinks fiercely, and then blinks in surprise at himself. He doesn’t think he has ever felt this hard up in his life. It’s baffling. It’s… _incredible_.

“And I need to sleep,” Richie goes on. “Got that morning show tomorrow. You gonna watch me?”

Eddie’s hips jerk at that. “You bet,” he grunts, bending to press his forehead to the cool marble countertop. He can feel himself straining against his boxer-briefs. He feels distinctly _damp_ , like he’s dripping. _Fuck_.

“Maybe I’ll blow you a kiss,” Richie teases, and Eddie’s crackling nerves settle, just a tad. He wishes he could kiss Richie right fucking now, but he won’t be home for more than a week.

“Sap,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, I know,” laughs Richie. “What can I say? I love ya, Eds.”

“Love you, too,” and Eddie tries to put as much feeling into it as he can, feeling like a firecracker with a short, fizzing fuse. “Come home soon.”

“Soon as I can,” Richie says, a smile in his voice. “Night.”

“Night.”

Eddie rips the headphones out of his ears and nearly throws them and his phone down on the counter. He spares one extra moment to rinse the soap off his hands before he plunges one beneath his waistband, jerking himself hard and wet, the image of Richie kneeling over him blazing behind his eyes—

_Richie gazing greedily down at him from between Eddie’s spread legs_

_—With his glasses_ _on_ , Eddie thinks with a thrill, sliding his hand up and down. _Lights fucking_ on, _too—_

_Richie’s broad, hairy chest flexing with effort, big hands grasping Eddie’s hips, holding them fast_

_—_ Eddie stumbles out of the kitchen and down the hall, his sweatpants bunching and riding down until he has to kick himself out of them to avoid tripping. He throws himself down on their bed and resumes his hard stroking, knees bent, legs spread as though Richie is going to crawl up the bedspread and nestle between them _—_

_Richie, buried inside him, ravenous and watching as Eddie’s hand flies over his own— his own— member…_

_—_ because that’s what they call it in books, right? “Member.” Eddie’s motion stutters a bit. Suddenly, he’s thinking. This is— This would never happen, would it? This is too wild, too _much_ , Eddie could never let himself go like this, let someone, even Richie, watch him, _watch him—_

_Richie groaning, eyes blown black and pinned on Eddie, and this time he’s not even in him yet, he’s just rubbing the blunt head of his— his_ cock _against Eddie’s hole and_

—oh _god_ the idea of Richie tantalizing him, just watching him come apart like that, it’s _not_ too much, it’s not _enough_ , Eddie can’t _get_ enough, he’s still—

_he’s still fucking soaked at just the tease, at just Richie’s hot gaze setting him on fire, and he can’t help but grip his own leaking cock in his hand and slide his fist up and down_

—up and down—

_up and down, over again,_

—his eyelids sliding shut as he moans—

_and Richie, eyes eating him up, cock pressing against him, into him, groans, “I fucking love watching you get off, Eds, look at you, you’re so fucking desperate for it, you’re dripping, you’re— you’re_ dripping _for me_ —”

A strangled moan tears from Eddie’s throat, and he jerks half off the bed, curling in on himself, as he spills, hot and trembling, all over his hand and stomach.

And that’s when the kitchen timer goes off.

***

Eddie doesn’t have time to dwell on whatever the fuck _that_ was until he goes to bed, a couple hours on. Or, more accurately, he doesn’t _allow_ himself the time to dwell on it. He’s… stunned. He has _never_ been so desperate to orgasm that he dropped everything to chase it. When he watches himself brush his teeth in the bathroom mirror, he almost expects to see someone different looking back at him. Someone who will start touching himself right there in the kitchen, where they make _food_. Instead it’s just the same heavy brows, the same lipless slash of a mouth, the same lined, hangdog face that he has come to accept.

The same face that Richie likes to _watch_ when—

A shiver runs down his spine. He spits into the sink.

It was the idea of Richie _watching_ him that started it, he thinks, rinsing and spitting again. He thought of Richie watching him. And then he just… kept thinking, coming up with scenarios that had never happened but that set his veins on fire and got his cock so deliciously hard that he felt _desperate_ in a way he never has before.

“Fuck,” he breathes, looking down. His dick is starting to fill out again, just from him recalling what happened earlier. And he’s _forty_.

Normally, Eddie would just kind of… _ignore_ it. Maybe that’s sad, he thinks now, frowning. But he got used to ignoring it, living with first his mom and then Myra. Almost into his mid-twenties, Eddie had been vaguely convinced that his mother would somehow _know_ if he did something wrong, and the idea of her knowing he touched himself made him want to _expire_. On the rare occasions he did give in and do it, he made sure she was out of the house and afterwards he always made copious promises to himself that he wouldn’t do it again until he moved out. And he did move out. Three times. But then he went back. Then she died.

And then came Myra. Myra found the entire concept of sex so deeply embarrassing that they had only ever made vague attempts to even pretend to have a sex life. Which suited Eddie just fine, actually; he told her regularly and to her great delight that he hadn’t married her for the sex, which was probably the truest thing he ever said to her. Obviously, Myra never excited him. And the times he _did_ find inspiration to touch himself—a broad shoulder at the gym, a sharp stubbly jaw on the representative for the new account—it was so deeply confusing that Eddie preferred to run himself ragged on the treadmill rather than go home and risk Myra jiggling the doorknob of the locked bathroom, demanding to know what was taking him so long.

Now, though, it can be different. With Richie, it can be different. Maybe he wants Richie to know. Not just _that_ he touches himself but when and why and how.

Maybe he wants Richie to _watch_.

This time, Eddie’s not frantic as he strips off his clothes and lies down on the bed. He’s methodical, attempting to be almost scientific, observing himself, his reactions. He slides cool hands down his chest, over the jagged scar where he was burst open, fingers bumping along the uneven, remaining ribs. He’s already hard, and it feels good to drag his hands along the crease where his thighs meet his abdomen, pressing down, scratching fingernails through the coarse hair.

As unusual as it was for him to be so frantic to finish earlier, taking time with his body is perhaps even stranger. Eddie is borderline obsessed with his body, in the way a researcher may become obsessed with their subject rats. His body is only as good to him as its measurements—temperature, weight, heartrate, white blood cell count. For a while, in his thirties, he sometimes felt like he was punishing his body. For… for its own mortality, he supposes. Years of eating “clean,” counting macros, grinding the treadmill beneath his prescription running shoes, all to fight off the threat of ailment, of weakness, of decrepitude—and for what? To be reminded with one phone call that he had once upon a time recognized this terror of illness and screamed it down. To go back to Derry and be stabbed in the cheek, impaled through the ribcage, dragged bleeding through raw sewage. Evidence of the futility of living a life punishing his body for slowly dying around him day by day when with every pump of his heart in Derry it proved that it wanted only to live.

Richie is much kinder to Eddie’s body than Eddie himself is. Richie takes his time with it, smoothing his hot, rough palms over Eddie’s shoulders, his sternum, his surgical scars. The first time they (he sighs) _made love_ , Richie spent what felt like hours simply _touching_ him, and it didn’t feel like desperation, and certainly not like punishment.

It felt like worship.

A warm shiver goes through him at the memory. Eddie doesn’t think he could ever worship his own body, but at the very least he could get to know it better.

Slowly, he closes his fingers around his hard cock. It’s warm in his hand, and his hand is pleasant sensation against it. He gives it one soft pump, and the light touch makes his toes curl. He’s not used to touching himself gently like this, but it’s not bad; it couldn’t make him come, he doesn’t think, but it’s a nice start. It’s a sharp contrast to earlier, when he was dripping and desperate, imagining Richie kneeling between his legs. The thought sends another jolt down his spine.

Okay. So it really _is_ the idea of Richie watching him get off.

Hand slowly jerking himself, he decides to explore this concept. This _fantasy_ , he supposes, is what it is, Richie watching him. As though in fast forward, he recalls his earlier progression—from Richie looking down while fucking him to Richie simply teasing him while Eddie came all over himself—and decides (quite logically, he congratulates himself) to start from there.

He lets his legs fall open a little, and then, on a whim, hikes up his knees, as though Richie were really kneeling before him, cupping his hands around his thighs. Immediately, embarrassment washes over him at putting himself in this position, alone, with the light on, on top of the covers. He almost drops his feet and says fuck it to the whole endeavor, but then he hears Richie’s gravelly, strained _I fucking love watching you get off_ , and his dick jerks in his hand, pleasure pooling beneath his palm. A drop of precome beads at the top and spills down.

“Fuck,” he groans. He catches the moisture with his thumb and swipes across the head and that feels _so_ much better than doing it dry. It’s not, like, a _surprise_ that it is, but doing it like this, attempting to pay attention to every sensation, really drives it home. He reaches with his left hand into the bedside table for lube, just in case, and directs his thoughts back to the fantasy.

_Richie kneeling between his legs, one hand tucked in the fold of his knee, levering it up; the other pressing the tip of his cock against Eddie’s entrance, sliding over it, slick with lube. Richie staring down at Eddie fisting his dick, smirking at the needy sounds he’s making._

As an experiment, Eddie lets himself make one of those needy sounds, a soft, high-pitched _hnng_ that vibrates between his tongue and soft palate. It actually feels… hot, like he can’t help it, even though he knows he could (and has, every single time he’s ever masturbated). He lets out another, slightly louder, and—

_“Yeah, that’s it. Fuck, Eds, listen to you, you want it in you so_ bad _, don’t you?”_

—heat pools in his belly as his other hand drifts around his bent leg to press a finger against his hole, imagining it’s the tip of Richie’s dick. He bites his lip and pushes a bit harder, not to penetrate but just to feel the pressure. It makes his breath catch in his throat, need flooding his veins—

_“That feel good, baby? Bet it does. Bet you’d settle for my fingers at this point, wouldn’t you, just to feel_ something—”

—and the Richie in his fantasy says far filthier things than real-life Richie ever has, things he’s not sure Richie would ever actually say, but it still gets his hand scrabbling for the bottle of lube so fast he nearly sends it flying off the table. He pops the cap with his thumb and reluctantly removes his right hand from his dick to squeeze some lube onto his fingers and then he’s reaching back and—

_Richie’s fingertips are sliding over his hole, rubbing in circles around it, still teasing him, and Eddie rocks his_

—hips a little, trying to feel his fingers—

Richie’s _fingers press into him. Teasingly, smirking, Richie pulls away, and Eddie_

—whimpers, tugging harder at his cock, which is starting to leak in earnest now, the way it always does when Richie is actually there. The way that Richie mentioned the first time he took Eddie into his mouth and then never brought up again because Eddie told him to shut the fuck up about it, and normally that would never stop Richie but he must have felt how Eddie went still with embarrassment at having the evidence of his arousal pointed out, especially when Eddie had noticed Richie never got as wet and maybe there was something _wrong_ with getting that wet and what did it say about _Eddie_ that he always got—

_“—so wet, just dripping, fuck, look at you, so needy, you look so fucking good like this—”_

—and Eddie moans, his hips canting upwards, thrusting his dick into the tight circle of his hand, slick with precome. Richie _did_ sound like he liked it, weeks ago, when he first drew his face level with Eddie’s cock and saw just how slick he had become only from Richie’s mouth on his neck and lips and nipple, only… only Eddie was so embarrassed, to feel so out of control of his body. Yet that’s just what is driving him wild right now, as he lets out another muted groan and slides one lubed-up finger inside himself and gasps as his body floods with heat—

_Richie’s eyes are blown black and glued to Eddie’s, in awe at his desperation, and he’s not even the one fingering Eddie anymore; he’s just sitting back on his heels and watching as Eddie drags his own finger in and out of his loosening hole as he fucks his cock into his fist. Richie’s own cock is a thick curve jutting out from his thighs, and Richie is tracing his fingertips over the blunt head almost as an afterthought, mesmerized by the motion of Eddie’s hands, and he_

—bites his lip as he withdraws one finger and adds a second, moaning at the feeling, at how it’s not enough. Fuck, he wishes it was—

_“—my cock, don’t you? Are you thinking of my hard cock filling you up? God, you take me so good, Eds, I love it, love taking my time with you, getting you so wet and loose and ready for me, the way your head falls back on the pillow when I finally slide in, the sounds you make, how you feel when I’m fucking you,_ fuck _—”_

“— _fuck_ ,” Eddie gasps, his eyes squeezing shut, his thighs beginning to flex and tremble, his cock rock hard and slippery in his frantic hand, the head swollen, and he crooks his fingers up to press and rub at his prostate and his wrist is starting to hurt but he’s— he’s fucking _desperate_ , okay, he _is_ , he’s desperate and needy and wishing he had Richie’s fat (fuck) cock ( _fuck_ ) inside him and—

_“—Yeah, Eds, that’s it, god, you’re so fucking close, I can tell—”_

—Eddie whines, and _twists_ with one hand and _presses_ with the other and with a kick of his hips he’s coming hard and hot and _god,_ it’s—

_“_ — _so fucking much, fuck, fuck, look at you, oh my_ god _, you’re_ —”

— _still_ coming, long after he normally would have stopped, his eyes screwed up, his mouth panting between whimpers, his asshole contracting rhythmically over his knuckles as he comes in hot, white stripes across his chest and stomach, and continues to fuck up into his fist long after he’s done, uncaring of the overstimulation, wanting only to live a little longer in that sweet oblivion.

Finally, he slows his hand, panting hard. When he opens his eyes, he’s dazed and bleary. He moves his hands to rest on his stomach (which is already a disgusting mess so he might as well), takes a deep breath, and lets it go out his slackened jaw. He feels _wrung out_ , his legs like jelly as he lets his heels slide down the bedspread. He can’t even be bothered with the mess quite yet, though he thinks he probably should shower sooner than later.

For now, though, he can reflect on the findings of his little “experiment.” And, well… obviously, it was by far the best orgasm he’s ever had while masturbating. Would be the best orgasm _period_ , if he hadn’t already had sex with Richie. But it’s hard to compare. When Eddie comes during sex, it’s total, all-encompassing, mind and body and heart and— ugh, it’s really just so sappy to think about, but it’s true, it is, because it’s based on how much he and Richie love each other. He’s always so overwhelmed, then, that he almost wants to ask Richie to keep going, keep driving into him; he clings to Richie’s back to try to urge him silently on, but Richie always follows him shortly afterwards and then pulls out, pressing kisses to Eddie’s temple, the side of his mouth, and Eddie sometimes shivers, still wanting but too grateful for what he’s gotten already to ask.

_This_ orgasm, though, was based on want, on need, on _now please yes right fucking now_ , and it felt delicious and electric and _hot_. And because he was thinking of Richie, everything else—love and trust and _forever—_ was there too, in the background. He can’t help but wonder what it would be like to combine the two, to have Richie there, to feel him the way he’s gotten so used to over the past few weeks.

At the very least, he wishes Richie were there with him right now. He’s not sure exactly how that fantasy would go in real life, not sure how it would feel to have Richie touch him like that and tease him and talk so dirty to him, if Richie would even actually be into something like that, if Richie would continue touching him through his orgasm and even after, the way Eddie did to himself. But he does know that when he cracked open his blurry eyes, he was disappointed not to have Richie kneeling there before him on the bed. Not to have Richie lean down to plant a soft, smiling kiss on his parched mouth. Not to have Richie curl up beside him, soft and warm and spent.

Not to have Richie there to actually watch.

***

Eddie wakes up early the next morning to catch Richie’s morning show interview. Richie’s supposed to be promoting his new special—appropriately and disgustingly titled _If I Wanted My Own Comeback_ —and he bet Eddie ten dollars before leaving that he could get Al Roker to say the title out loud at least one more time than was contractually obligated.

Eddie watches it from the couch, his hands curled around one of Richie’s giant novelty mugs, and is messily chortling into his coffee at Richie’s embarrassingly transparent attempts to prod Al into repeating the name of his special, when one of the cohosts cuts in.

“So, Richie, is it true that you might be seeing someone new?” She leans in, smiling, eyes wide, as though this is the most interesting question she’s asked all morning.

Eddie grimaces. He knows she’s just doing her job, but it feels so invasive.

Richie, however, doesn’t seem to agree. His face fucking lights up. “Oh, yeah,” he says, smiling widely. “Yeah, we’ve only been dating for six weeks, but we’ve known each other since we were kids.”

Eddie squirms, not unpleasantly, as the hosts all coo at that. When the camera turns to him, Richie is glowing.

“And you’ve been friends this whole time?”

“No, we lost touch but reconnected last fall,” says Richie, bobbing his head and smiling in the way that means he’s feeling bashful and earnest. “It was like no time had passed.”

“What a beautiful story!” a host simpers.

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Eddie grouses.

“ _I_ think so, too!” Richie says, laughing. “But he hates it when people say that kinda thing. I can practically hear him shouting at the TV.”

Eddie blushes, his mouth snapping shut as the hosts laugh.

“You mean he’s watching right now?” asks Al.

“He said he would be,” says Richie, and he turns to one of the cameras with a smile. “Babe, if you’re watching, I miss you, and I still swear you’re gonna owe me ten dollars by the end of this.” And he winks and blows a kiss and the hosts laugh and Eddie—

Eddie goes hot all over, because when Richie looked into the camera it was like he was _looking right at him_ , and apparently that’s all it fucking takes now.

By the time Richie’s off the air, Eddie is keyed up, his knee bouncing on the couch. He texts Richie as soon as he walks off the set and then sort of paces the condo, making vague attempts at getting ready for work. He’ll have to leave soon, but he still has some time before he has to go, in which he and Richie could conceivably talk on the phone, and Eddie could tell him… tell him…

Eddie’s phone buzzes in his hand, and he jumps, scrambling to accept the call and press the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he says—questioning, like he doesn’t already know who it is, because that’s how he grew up answering the phone before caller ID and he still can’t break the habit.

“Eds!” Richie’s voice is exuberant. “So ya tuned in?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, gritting his teeth and jittering his hand by his hip. So much fucking energy. “You looked great.”

“Oh, you liked the monkey suit they shoved me into?” Richie laughs. “You know, they had to have it specially made since not everyone’s built like a construction crane hauling a dumpster.”

Eddie clenches his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. There is no fucking reason to be turned on. None at all. “Are you busy right now?”

“Right _now_ , right now? No. But I do have to go in for a meeting in, like, forty-five minutes. Why?”

“I, uh.” Eddie takes a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you about something?”

“…Oh?”

“It’s not bad.”

Richie gives a quiet, uneasy laugh. “You’re, uh, not inspiring confidence, I gotta say—”

“Richie, I love you,” Eddie says impatiently. “Me forgetting about you for more than twenty years didn’t change it, you taking me to Olive Garden while wearing your dumbass Garfield shirt that says _Property of Lasagna_ and claiming it was ‘festive’ didn’t change it, _nothing is going to change it_.”

Richie goes silent on the line. After a moment, Eddie hears a loud sniff.

“Are you crying?”

Even louder sniff. Throat clear. “Only out my nose,” Richie says huskily.

“Disgusting,” Eddie says fondly.

“But you love me.”

“Yep, I do.”

“Fuck _me_ ,” Richie sighs, and Eddie can imagine him rubbing a hand over his face, composing himself. “All right, I’m okay, I’m okay. What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Eddie grimaces and takes a seat on a stool at the breakfast bar, knee still jiggling. “Okay. Well. It— Something… happened? Last night.” He sighs. “It’s kind of… awkward. For me to talk about.”

“You discovered your fetish for one-sided phone sex,” Richie jokes.

Eddie huffs out a laugh. “I mean, you’re not far off.”

For the second time, Richie goes silent. It’s getting a little eerie, actually.

“Eds,” Richie says, and his voice is conspicuously steady, “are you saying you, uh— that there was something that got you, uh—”

“Hard?” Eddie supplies, because Richie fumbling is making him feel more even keeled.

Richie swallows audibly. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, Rich,” he says, voice low. “You got me hard.”

Richie makes a little whining noise, and Eddie feels it pulse in his dick. This is not exactly what he had in mind for this talk—he has to work today, for fuck’s sake—but he feels helpless to stop.

No, fuck that. He doesn’t _want_ to stop.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Richie breathes. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have just— I mean, I thought you were cooking, I thought you didn’t think you could—”

“It’s fine,” says Eddie, shifting in his seat. “I kind of wanted to, uh… figure it out on my own, I guess?”

“Oh.” Richie is breathing hard into the phone. “And did you? Figure it out on your own?”

Eddie’s face is burning, but something about the way Richie is asking him, practically begging him to tell makes him feel confident. Brave.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Twice.”

Richie fucking _whimpers_.

Eddie presses the heel of his hand against himself through his slacks. He’s well on his way to fully hard now. “Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m hiding in the fucking closet-sized bathroom off the dressing room at _The_ _Today Show_ , Eds, what the fuck.”

Eddie can’t suppress a laugh. “Sorry,” he says, removing his hand from his dick and holding it to his knee instead, squeezing. “Don’t you have to get to that meeting?”

“Yes, but I don’t think they want me showing up horny and thinking about my boyfriend jerking it three thousand miles away!”

“Well, I have to get to work, too,” says Eddie, “so I won’t be jerking it. As you so eloquently put it.”

“Are you hard now?”

Eddie bites his lip. Fights the urge to lie. “Yes,” he admits.

“Fuck,” Richie breathes. “Me, too.”

Eddie lets himself make that soft _hnng_ sound between his tongue and soft palate. He thrills when Richie groans softly in response.

“Eds,” Richie says hoarsely, “I need you to tell me… I mean, do you think you _could_ tell me… what you were thinking about last night? What was it that got you going?”

Heat rushes to Eddie’s face. This was what he specifically wanted to talk to Richie about, but still… “Uh, yeah.” He allows his hand to slide back up his thigh. He palms his hard cock through his pants as he says, “It was, um, you saying you liked… watching me get off…”

Richie _moans_. It sends electricity shooting up and down Eddie’s legs, arms, spine. He shivers.

“Eddie, I fucking _love_ watching you get off,” Richie growls into the phone. “Fuck, please, _please_ tell me you’re touching yourself right now.”

“I mean,” Eddie demurs, “through my pants.”

“Shit, okay, well, _my_ dick is fully out and I’m gonna beat off before I have to walk back out through Studio 1A or else Al Roker’s gonna have me arrested for public indecency. So please feel free to whip yours out, too.”

Eddie laughs at the same time as he presses down harder. The pressure is both comforting and enticing. He glances at the clock on the microwave. “I really should go to work…”

“Eds, you are _killing_ me,” groans Richie. “At least give me some more details on last night before you go. I’m not exactly in the mood to make this last.”

“Details on last night?” Eddie echoes. Fuck, he really should head out, but the idea of telling Richie _specifics_ … He squeezes himself roughly. “Well, I thought about what you said. About watching me get off.”

“Yeah? You thought about me watching you?”

“Mm. Thought about you, um—” He draws in a breath, dragging his hand over his crotch. “Looking down at me while you— had sex with me.”

_Shit_. It’s a lame finish, but for some reason he still can’t bring himself to say it. The F-word. At least, not in its literal context, to the person literally doing it to him. ( _Which, what the hell, how does that make any fucking sense, anxiety brain? See, you’ll say ‘fuck’ there, won’t you? Jesus fucking Christ_.)

Richie doesn’t seem bothered, though. His breathing is growing harsh in Eddie’s ear, and it’s making goosebumps prickle on the back of his neck. “God, yeah,” he says, “I love touching you while I’m inside you, Eds. You’re so fucking sensitive, I love it.”

“ _Hnngh_.” Eddie’s eyes flare wide, his body going hot. _That_ sound was totally unbidden, as was the spurt of precome that he can feel wetting his boxer-briefs. Well, he might as well whip it out now, he thinks exasperatedly. He’s going to have to change no matter what.

He pins the phone to his ear with his shoulder. Slowly, he unhooks his slacks, pops the button, and pulls down the fly. His dick is hot and hard in his quickly dampening underwear. He adjusts it so it’s lying up against his belly instead of along his thigh and begins sliding his hand over it.

“I’ve undone my pants,” he tells Richie, repositioning the phone in his hand.

Richie giggles. “Thanks for the report, detective.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

Richie laughs. “I think me shutting up would make this phone sex a lot more boring, to be honest.”

Eddie makes another noise, this time of frustration. He wants Richie to take this seriously. Not _too_ seriously—that would be weird; it’s Richie, after all—but come on, he’s… he’s going out on a limb here.

He grips his cock harder, through the cotton, and looks down. A smear of precome is creating a widening wet spot near the head. He rubs his thumb over it, watching it spread.

On impulse, he murmurs, “My dick’s getting so wet, Rich.”

Eddie nearly grins at the sharp gasp Richie lets out. “Holy Jesus _fuck_ , Eddie, _Christ_.”

“Oh, so you don’t mind that report, huh?” Eddie says, challengingly, his heart racing with how defeated Richie sounds.

“You know I love how wet you get,” Richie groans, voice deep and earnest, and now Eddie _has_ to peel the waistband of his boxer-briefs down over his cock and wrap a hand around it. This time he doesn’t even realize he’s moaned until he hears Richie say, “Fuck, Eds, you sound so good. I hope you’re touching that pretty dick of yours.”

Eddie lets out another deep noise from inside his healed-over chest, thighs flexing as he begins to jerk himself in earnest. “Yeah,” he breathes, “yeah, I am. Talk to me. Tell me—”

“—How I like looking at you?” Richie finishes, and Eddie can hear a strained smile. “Fuck, I could talk about that forever. I thought we didn’t want this to go long.”

“Fine,” Eddie grits out, one hand working his dick, the other gripping his phone tight to his ear. “Then how about I tell you what I thought about?”

“Fuck, yeah, Eds, god, you know I’d—”

But Eddie’s barely listening, his mind spinning back to last night. His fantasies. “Yeah, all right, yeah,” he says, feeling somehow horny and competitive all at once, raring to prove himself. “You want me to tell you how I thought about you teasing me with just the head of your cock, Richie? While you watched me jerk myself off on the bed below you?”

“Eddie, shit, _what_ —”

Richie sounds shocked and wrecked in the best way, and it is making Eddie feel on _fire_. “Or how you told me how much you love working me open, getting me ready for you, watching me come apart as you slide into me?”

“Jesus, yes, fuck, I love—”

“Or how I _came_ ,” he goes on relentlessly, muscles tensing, hand sliding faster, “to the thought of you not even doing anything to me? You just sitting back on your heels, just watching me, fuck— watching me… _fuck_ myself on my fingers—”

“Holy shit, Eds, oh my god—”

“—and wishing it was your— your fat dick, Rich, and coming so fucking hard thinking of you, fuck, just w- _watching_ , oh god, oh fuck, o-oh, I’m— _I’m_ —”

“God, Eddie, me too, me too, _fuck_ —”

Eddie curls over himself as he comes again (for the third time in, what? twelve hours?), this one hitting faster, more suddenly, like a shotgun blast, spurred on by Richie’s own muffled sobs in his ear. He manages to catch most of it with his hand, pumping more and more slowly over the taut head as he comes down, watching the come pool on the top of his fist in something like disbelief. He has _never_ jerked off this much _in his life_.

What the fuck is going _on_?

“W-wow,” Richie stammers, breathing hard. “That was…”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, somewhat dazed.

“Eds,” Richie laughs. It’s a little high-pitched, clearly incredulous. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me you’re a fucking dirty talk master? I’ve been treating you with kid gloves, man, if I’d known you wanted to get kinky—”

“ _I_ didn’t know!” Eddie exclaims. “Not until you—”

He cuts himself off, blushing, and— what the hell? He can’t possibly still be embarrassed to say this. He just talked himself and his boyfriend through an orgasm over the phone at nearly eight in the morning on a workday, but—

But he is. He still is.

Fuck. Get through it, Kaspbrak.

“Not until you said you liked to watch,” he forces himself to say.

“Yeah, I gathered,” Richie chuckles.

Eddie bristles, self-conscious. “Fuck off.”

“Eds, I’m not making fun, honest,” Richie says, and Eddie can imagine his hands up, fending him off. “It’s hot as hell. If I’d known those were the magic words, I would have said them to you a long time ago. Like, when we were in high school.”

Eddie huffs and rolls his eyes, trying to relax. He knows Richie’s not going to actually tease him about this, but it’s so… so new. He doesn’t even know what to do with it himself.

“Somehow I don’t think it would have had the same effect,” he grumbles. Carefully, he stands up, keeping his messy hand secure around his dick as he waddles to the bathroom to wash off.

“What, acne and bad B.O. didn’t do it for you?”

“You didn’t have B.O.,” Eddie argues, still feeling off-kilter from his startling horniness and contrarian from being teased about it. He washes and dries his hands (and dick) and moves to their bedroom to change into clean clothes.

“What? Eddie, do you need your sniffer checked? My parents fucking _lamented_ my body odor all through high school. With much wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

“Well, it wasn’t bad,” says Eddie. “Not to me, anyway.”

“Ugh, I wish I could go back in time and give you a ratty sweatshirt of mine or something. You could have fallen asleep hugging it.”

“Well, you’ve got plenty lying around here. Maybe I’ll do that tonight.”

“Eds, please,” Richie sighs. “You can’t dirty talk me like _that_ and then sweet talk me like _this_. You’re gonna give me sexual whiplash.”

“All right, all right,” Eddie says, cracking a smile. Something about Richie acknowledging that it’s affected him, too, makes Eddie relax. Just a bit. Just enough. “I need to get dressed, and you need to go to your meeting.”

“Ugh, fine. I just miss pillow-talking with you. And everything with you. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Eddie says sincerely. “Now get going.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Oh, and Richie?”

“Yeah?”

“You owe me ten bucks.”

***

Eddie thought that jerking off for a third time (in twelve hours) would put an end to this madness. And in his defense, it did—for a while. He made it to the Los Angeles office a little later than usual, but his L.A. supervisor is much more laidback than his department head back in New York; she even seemed kind of happy that he wasn’t in at his usual 8:00 AM, flashed him a peace sign like Janis Joplin or something. He felt focused and satisfied, relaxed in a way that he couldn’t remember feeling at work maybe ever.

By the time lunch rolls around, though, he is getting antsy, shifting in his seat, drumming his fingers on the arm of his ergonomic desk chair, a twin of the one he has in New York. And then Richie has to go and send him a text that says, _cant believe you made me cum in al rokers toilet_ , followed by a drooling emoji, an eggplant, and a spray of droplets, and that shouldn’t be hot, but Eddie’s body seems to have turned the horny dial all the way up and the broken the handle off the emergency switch.

He decides to go for a run on the treadmill. He often works out at lunch, but rarely is it physically necessary. Today, he figures, he ought to try to wear himself out, if he wants to get anything done at all.

He takes a later lunch than normal, so almost no one is in the company gym when he arrives; by the time he is really starting to sweat, the gym has emptied, and by the time he finishes his run, he has mercifully forgotten the way Richie’s heavy breathing sounded in his ear as he came in the _Today Show_ ’s single bathroom.

In front of the wall of mirrors, he rolls out one of the gym’s yoga mats to finish with his customary ten minutes of core work. He makes brief, accidental eye contact with his reflection before glancing away, but then looks back again, more deliberately. Observing.

He’s fit, he knows: above-average body-weight-to-height ratio for his age group, above-average cardiac capacity, above-average mile time. Right now, the Under Armour shirt he has on is stuck to his chest and stomach, dark crescents of sweat ringing his neck and armpits. His hair is slightly messy, flopping onto his shiny forehead, and his thighs are… well, his thighs are looking pretty, uh, “swole” (right?), actually, from the running, the muscles standing out more defined than normal. He thinks of how Richie touches his thighs when they’re in bed together, taking his time sliding his hands over them, pressing open-mouthed kisses on the sensitive insides as he works his way over Eddie’s body.

Maybe Richie would like to see the way Eddie’s body looks right now.

Before he can think about it too much, Eddie lifts his phone, navigates to the camera app, and takes a picture.

A picture of himself. At the gym. In the mirror. Not exactly flexing but not _not_ flexing. A gym selfie.

Eddie Kaspbrak takes a gym selfie and sends it to Richie Tozier.

Almost immediately, his body floods with fear. What a fucking _moron_ he is, sending a picture of himself! It even has his _face_ in it! Who _does_ that? More importantly, who does that at _forty_? What if someone sees it? Someone could recognize him. He could lose his job! _Richie_ could lose _his_ job, through some cascade of events in which someone sees him looking at the picture, thinks he’s some kind of, of sweaty gym selfie pervert, and never wants to work with him again! Or— or Richie’s a celebrity, he could get hacked, like what happened to Jennifer Lawrence in 2014, and then Eddie’s face would be plastered everywhere, and he could never go out in public again, not even to the supermarket.

The phone nearly tumbles out of his hand in Eddie’s haste to text.

**Eddie**  
FUCK FUCK DELETE THAT OH MY GOD

His heart races while he waits for Richie’s reply. He can’t even do his planks, he’s so hopped up. Finally, the buzz comes through.

**Richie**  
???  
why???

**Eddie**  
HACKERS RICHIE WHAT IF YOU GET HACKED??

**Richie**  
omg lol eds no ones gonna hack me

**Eddie**  
HOW CAN YOU EVEN SAY THAT??  
DON’T YOU REMEMBER 2014?? WITH JENNIFER LAWRENCE??

**Richie**  
lmao im flattered you think im on the same level as j law  
no one wants my nudes, eds, you dont have to worry. but i love you, you little weirdo, so i will delete it

Eddie breathes a deep sigh of relief. His entire body unclenches. It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be _fine_.

**Eddie**  
THANK YOU

As an afterthought, he types out several heart emojis, to soften the urgency. He deletes all but one of them before sending, because it feels like a bit much.

**Richie**  
ofc eds youre welcome  
tho it pains me to do so, you look so fuckin hot 🥵

Eddie feels a much more pleasant rush down his limbs at that. Richie liked the picture. Richie thought he looked _hot_ in the picture.

**Eddie**  
Yeah? You liked it?

**Richie**  
duh  
if youd let me keep it, it woulda become quite a hefty deposit in the old spank bank💦

Eddie glances up at himself in the mirror again. His shirt is still damp, clinging to his biceps and stomach. Suddenly, stupidly, he wants to take another, just because of Richie’s praise, but he knows he’d just freak out all over again. While he’s contemplating this strange compulsion, his phone buzzes again.

**Richie**  
ever heard of snapchat? lol

Eddie rolls his eyes. He is not fooled by Richie’s “lol”; he knows a sincere proposition when he sees one. And he _has_ heard of Snapchat. Myra told him about it around the time every major news outlet was doing an exposé on the newest way the teens were trying to see each other naked, and wasn’t it such a moral outrage, she said, and didn’t it show just how debauched today’s teens were, and wasn’t this country going in the wrong direction if this is what people spent their time doing, and Eddie just nodded along, realizing vaguely that he couldn’t remember trying to see anyone naked as a teenager, and then that he couldn’t remember being a teenager _period_ , and maybe that was a little odd. But then he’d been distracted by something else entirely, or maybe he’d said he needed to go to work, or to sleep, or to work out—something he often said to Myra—and he’d abandoned that train of thought as quickly as it appeared.

**Eddie**  
Yes, I’ve heard of it. Isn’t it for youths?

**Richie**  
“youths” lmao eds you’re like a villain in a kids movie  
snapchat is for everyone, i have one that i never use but i can start up again if youre interested

Eddie sighs, jiggling his leg. He glances back at himself in the mirror. He takes in the scar on his cheek, his total absence of lips, the deep creases in his forehead. He wonders just how horrified America’s teens would be to learn that Edward Kaspbrak, Senior Risk Analyst, is considering joining their secret naked picture app so he can send his equally agèd boyfriend sweaty gym selfies.

He sighs and raises his phone.

**Eddie**  
Fine. I’ll get the Snapchat.

**Richie**  
the youths better watch out lmao

***

Richie sends Eddie a couple “snaps” (as Richie calls them) throughout the rest of the workday, so Eddie can get used to the concept. Sure enough, Richie’s purposefully ugly, up-angle selfies and awkward videos of him telling terrible puns all disappear after their allotted time. Eddie sends Richie a picture of himself rolling his eyes in response and is even alerted when Richie takes a screenshot. It all does a lot to assuage his nerves.

He even finds himself wishing he’d had Snapchat downloaded earlier, in the gym, so he could have truly surprised Richie with that selfie. There’s something exciting about the idea of sending Richie a suggestive picture without warning, a thrill in getting Richie’s attention focused on him from three thousand miles away. Eddie’s always craved Richie’s attention.

Richie has a show tonight, so their text conversation goes dead for a few hours in the late afternoon and early evening, spanning the time from when Eddie gets off work to when he makes it back to Richie’s condo. Richie’s East Coast mini-tour is meant simultaneously to promote his comeback special and continue establishing his new persona. The transition from fratty straight asshole Trashmouth to gay-and-out Richie Tozier who bakes peach cobbler for his new boyfriend was neither smooth nor painless, but Richie seems to find it immensely rewarding, and Eddie is happy to see him so enthusiastic. It’s just unfortunate that the mini-tour’s schedule ended up misaligning with Eddie’s new split-time, New York-and-L.A. work schedule.

It’s particularly unfortunate because, against all odds, Eddie is _still horny._

On the bright side, this time it’s not an urgent horniness. He just thinks he would enjoy having one more, uh… _erotic experience_ today. Which he’s pretty sure Richie would argue is just a hoity-toity way of saying he’d like to bust another nut.

All of which lands on Eddie back in Richie’s bedroom, lying on top of the comforter with the bottle of lube in one hand, his phone in the other, and a plan percolating in his brain.

Slowly, Eddie tugs down his sweatpants and boxer-briefs and pulls out his soft dick. He pumps it deliberately for several minutes, watching it stiffen. He has to admit that there is _something_ about the state of being so turned on he has to drop everything to pursue his own pleasure that he has never previously appreciated: a sense of simultaneous power and surrender, stemming from a burgeoning mastery of his body and mind that Eddie finds deeply gratifying. All of this because he finally knows who he is and has a partner whom he loves and trusts and, crucially, truly _wants_ , even when he is far away.

When he’s fully hard, he reaches for his phone. Despite his swiftly growing confidence vis-à-vis erotic experiences ( _busting a nut_ , the Richie voice in his brain whispers), his face is still on fire as he opens Snapchat. He takes the picture from the side, with his left hand wrapped loosely around his dick, thumb just brushing the ridge of the head, and immediately brings the phone to his face to scrutinize. To his surprise, he doesn’t hate the picture; he thinks, if given the option, he’d like receiving a similar one from Richie. He sends it and feels only a pleasant thrill rather than the rush of terror from earlier.

Of course, Richie’s still on stage. He won’t see this picture for at least another hour. In terms of instant gratification, it doesn’t do much for Eddie. But the idea of Richie walking backstage, checking his phone, and seeing Eddie sent him a snap? Maybe he doesn’t even realize it’s going to be a sexy one. Maybe he just smiles, expecting something sweet (or, more likely, vaguely mean, which for them is sweet). Maybe he nearly drops his phone as soon as he sees it, maybe he gasps at the image of Eddie holding his hard dick in his hand, maybe his own dick starts to fatten in his jeans, maybe…

Eddie is stroking his cock more seriously now, imagining Richie staring at the picture he just sent. The Richie in his imagination whines when the picture’s timer runs out, has to adjust himself in his pants, has to take a deep breath before leaving his dressing room, shaking hands with his manager on a job well done, thinking all the while how eager he is to get back to his hotel room so he can take his own thickening cock in hand.

Or maybe one picture wouldn’t be enough. Richie’s busy, after all; he has a lot of distractions tonight. One picture of Eddie’s dick probably isn’t going to derail his whole evening, not when he’s riding a performance high and a bourbon buzz. Eddie slows his strokes, thinking.

He reaches for the bottle of lube. Methodically, he coats his fingers, adding more lube than he did the night before because he wants them to be slick and shiny-wet. He presses one finger into himself without much fanfare and quickly works up to another before he snaps a picture. This shot is a lot harder to get right, he finds. He can barely see where he’s aiming the camera and it keeps coming out blurry. He tries using the flash once and quickly realizes that is a _no go_. Eventually, he settles on a picture where it’s not too blurry, and it’s obvious what’s going on: discernible fingers stretching out his asshole rather than indistinct flesh. It’s not nearly as nice as his dick pic, but he tells himself it’s the thought that counts. Specifically, the thought that it puts in Richie’s head.

Now that he’s sent two pictures, though, he realizes he can’t stop there. There’s something unsatisfying about only _two_ pictures, especially when the second one isn’t necessarily aesthetically pleasing, just… explicit. He wonders what he could follow it up with.

He continues to lazily finger himself as he thinks, only just brushing the edges of his prostate, giving himself warm tingles from his skull to his tailbone. The need to orgasm is still distant, hazy on the horizon, not a desperate urge but rather an inevitability. In fact, he decides, he doesn’t _want_ to come until he’s talking to Richie. If their roles were reversed, he thinks he would want Richie to wait for him. The idea of Richie saving it, keeping himself worked up until Eddie’s ready, until Eddie says…

And Eddie thinks he knows just how to get Richie worked up.

He withdraws his fingers and replaces his hand on his dick, lifting his phone once more. This time he holds down the capture button, taking a video. He drags his fist slowly over his dick, from base to tip, squeezing just enough that a pearl of precome beads at the slit, growing larger until the surface tension breaks and it drips down the head. He catches it with the side of his thumb and spreads it over himself, thrusting his hips upward _just so_.

He lifts his thumb from the button and watches it play over, strangely proud. He hits Richie’s name to send it. Then he lifts off the bed to wash his hands and wait.

***

About forty-five minutes later, Eddie’s phone begins to buzz. He’s on the couch, his sweatpants back around his waist, keeping a sort of maintenance level of horniness by periodically dragging his hand over his half-hard dick with one eye on the TV screen. He reaches for his phone expecting a text, but Richie is calling him. He puts the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Eddie, what the _fuck_.” Richie’s voice is gruff, hushed; Eddie imagines him cupping a hand over the phone, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “Are you trying to _kill_ me?”

Eddie grabs the remote and mutes the TV, smirking. “So you got the snaps?” he asks innocently.

“ _Yes_ , I got the snaps, you maniac,” he hisses. “I just got off stage and looked at my phone and said to myself, ‘Oh, hm, a Snapchat from my boyfriend! Wonder if he cooked something tasty tonight,’ and then I saw _your fingers in your ass_ , _Eddie_.”

“Hm,” hums Eddie, as though it’s news to him.

“Don’t you ‘hm’ at me. You’re a menace.”

“Oh, so do you not want me to send you pictures of me with my fingers in my ass?”

“I— That is— No, no, that’s not the point at _all_ ,” Richie stammers. “The point is that I’m backstage at the Beacon and you send me pictures of you fingering yourself and— and your fucking _wet dick_ that I want in my mouth _yesterday_ , and now I have to go sign autographs or whatever the fuck with a giant-ass boner! I hope you’re happy!”

Eddie _is_ happy, actually. This is exactly what he wanted: Richie hot and bothered and rapt in attention. He levers himself up on the couch, palming his dick through his pants.

“Send me a picture,” he says.

“…What?”

“Of your boner. I want to see it.”

“Eddie, I’m backstage right now in, like, an alcove. I’m not even in a bathroom.”

“So?”

Richie makes a strangled sound, somewhere between disbelief and arousal.

Eddie waits, touching himself leisurely.

Richie sighs. “I always knew you would get me in trouble for public boners, Eddie Kaspbrak,” he says. “I just didn’t think you would ever be egging me on.”

Eddie smiles. “I wanna see your dick, Rich,” he says, voice low.

“Hrngghkay,” Richie says, and hangs up.

A few moments later, Eddie gets a Snapchat notification. The picture is dark, but Eddie can make out Richie’s hand gripping himself through black jeans, the shape of his long, thick cock evident along his thigh.

Eddie smiles at it, his pulse jumping. He points the camera at his own crotch and takes a matching picture, the thin material of his sweatpants framing his fully hard dick more clearly than Richie’s jeans.

**Richie**  
ashgafdjklsdlk

**Eddie**  
I haven’t come yet tonight. I’ve been saving it for you.

**Richie**  
ASDHIFGOAERSADKHFLLASLK

***

It’s another twenty to thirty minutes before Eddie’s phone buzzes again. He hasn’t moved from the couch, not knowing when Richie would be available and not wanting to get himself too worked up beforehand. To be honest, he’s thrilled by Richie’s response to his snaps. Eddie has never felt like a person who could reduce someone else to unintelligibility, but then again, he thinks wryly, Richie is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from unintelligibility at any given point.

(Or, that’s what he would say to Richie’s face, in that way they have of teasing each other that really means _you’re incredible, I adore you_ , because Richie’s job revolves around wordcraft and verbal precision and he’s goofy, sure, but not unintelligible, never moronic, Eddie actually thinks he’s smart and talented and— fuck, this is what happens when Richie’s away for just forty-eight hours, huh?)

Eddie’s phone goes off.

**Richie**  
im in the lyft, eta to the hotel 20 mins  
i wish i could look at those pictures again, just for some inspiration before i get back to my room

**Eddie**  
You’re not subtle.

**Richie**  
neither are you, ass fingers

**Eddie**  
Still thinking about that one, huh?

**Richie**  
id never seen you finger yourself before, so sue me  
i hope i get to see it in person

Eddie’s cock twitches beneath his hand at that, starting to fill out.

**Eddie**  
I bet that could be arranged.

**Richie**  
ill have my ppl call your ppl  
maybe we can pencil it in lol

The side of Eddie’s mouth tugs up a little at the same time as his eyebrows twitch down. Richie’s making light of it again and… and that’s _fine_ but…

**Eddie**  
Are you doing that thing where you use humor as a defense mechanism?

**Richie**  
jesus christ eds YES im trying to be cool okay??  
my boyfriend is an insanely hot sex fiend apparently and i want to see his dick!!

Eddie snorts, shifting on the couch. The dick in question is still fattening lazily in his sweatpants, the flat of his hand a sweet pressing warmth against it. Impulsively, Eddie takes another somewhat demure, clothed crotch shot and sends it to Richie. He only gets a small jolt when he realizes he sent it directly in the text chain rather than in Snapchat, and is pleasantly surprised to find he settles down much more easily this time. No face, barely any skin. He’s fine.

**Eddie**  
Getting there. ;)

**Richie**  
fuuuuckkkk eds 😩  
god wtf my mouth shouldnt be watering like this, your dicks not even fully hard  
i wanna pull down your pants and suck you off so bad

Eddie feels that familiar flush creeping up his neck, his cheeks, his ears. It’s not nearly as bad as last night, though, despite the fact that Richie’s being much more explicit now than simply telling him he misses holding him. It’s amazing the difference twenty-four hours can make, in terms of phone sex.

**Eddie**  
You’re really good at that.

**Richie**  
yeah? you like when i blow you?

**Eddie**  
I mean, obviously.

**Richie**  
its not obvious to me!  
sometimes i feel like youre just like, humoring me  
lmao

Eddie’s hand stills. He frowns. _Humoring_ him?

**Eddie**  
Humoring you? By having sex with you?

**Richie**  
ya lol

Eddie frowns still deeper. This is not where he expected the conversation to go.

**Eddie**  
Richie, I love you.

**Richie**  
i love you too!  
lol eds its not a big deal i just know that sex is like, not that big a thing for you  
like you dont like it that much  
or at least, i thought you didnt  
but i guess its easier if im not there lol

Eddie’s heart pangs painfully in his chest, his dick momentarily forgotten. Richie thought he didn’t enjoy sex with him? Richie thought he was just “humoring” him? Richie thinks Eddie’s only horny because he’s not there?

This cannot stand.

**Eddie  
** I’m sorry, I should have been clearer:  
Richie, I love fucking you.

The bubble of ellipsis appears. Then it disappears. Reappears. Disappears again.

Eddie decides to go on without waiting.

**Eddie**  
I know I gave the impression that sex isn’t that important to me or that I don’t want it and I’m sorry but that’s because honestly it never was and I never did before we got together.  
I’m just as surprised by all of this as you are.  
I don’t know what it was about last night but you saying you love watching me get off was like taking a railroad spike to the head, or like I’m the Manchurian Candidate or something and you said my activation words, I don’t fucking know.  
All I know is that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you fucking me or blowing me or touching me or not even touching me and just watching me touch myself and I have jerked off THREE TIMES in the past 24 hours and I have seen sitcoms so I know that’s not a lot for most people but it is for me and it’s because I can’t get enough of you, Richie, and I wish so, so bad that you were here but you’re not so please believe me when I say I’m fucking begging you can we please, PLEASE have some phone sex because talking about this has made me mad and horny and I miss you so fucking bad I’m gonna scream.

Richie’s ellipses disappear and reappear intermittently during Eddie’s tirade before stopping altogether sometime while he’s writing his third wall of text. By then, Eddie is like a man possessed, typing furiously and letting autocorrect and predictive typing take care of most of it. When he finally sends his last text, he’s breathing hard, as though he just ran a sprint, and his dick is incongruously throbbing. He tries desperately to ignore it, to wait for Richie to tell him everything is okay. That he believes him and understands him and wants this, too.

Finally, Richie starts typing again.

**Richie**  
eds i love you so fucking much  
and i am rock hard from thinking about how i activated you as a brainwashed sex assassin 🍆

Eddie laughs and returns his hand to his cock, rubbing it hard through his pants.

**Eddie**  
Show me.

Richie is a few minutes responding. Eddie is just about to type out a follow-up text (“It’s okay, you don’t have to”) when he gets another Snapchat notification. This one is purple instead of red, and Eddie still isn’t quite sure what that means but when he opens it, he nearly drops the phone on his face because _purple_ apparently means _video_.

Richie has unzipped his jeans and pulled his thick cock out through the fly. In the shifting orange glow of the streetlights, Eddie can see that he’s stroking it long and slow, blocked from view only by the backpack balanced precariously on his knees. Eddie’s breath catches in his throat as Richie runs his thumb over the slit and lets out a soft grunt behind the camera.

Then the video ends.

Eddie’s entire body is on fire. Feverishly, he yanks down his sweatpants and boxer-briefs. His dick bobs out, slapping against his stomach and smearing precome there before he takes it in hand. He’s suddenly so, so angry at himself for insisting on Snapchat. He wants to watch that video on repeat until his eyes roll back in his skull.

With one hand, he manages to jab out a response.

**Eddie**  
Fuck.

**Richie**  
yeah? you like?

**Eddie**  
You better not get arrested for indecent exposure because I need you to fuck me with that again soon.

**Richie**  
oh? your fingers in your ass arent enough, you need my cock?

Eddie thinks if he were any less horny, staring at those words would embarrass him so deeply he would have to shove his head between the couch cushions like a domesticated ostrich. But as it is—with his blood rushing in his ears and his hand on his leaking cock and his body feeling a rapidly growing need to be _filled_ —it sets him moaning.

**Eddie**  
Yeah I miss it. Need it in me.

**Richie**  
fuck god i cannot get to this fucking hotel fast enough jesus christ  
are you touching yourself?

And then, before Eddie can even reply, as though the idea of this specifically is spinning over and over in Richie’s head:

**Richie**  
are you fingering yourself?

Eddie swallows hard. He wants to, but the lube is in the bedroom and, moreover, he feels like if he starts fingering himself, he’s going to finish sooner than he wants. He’s already waited an hour and a half, and Richie’s not even at the hotel yet; he doesn’t want to go off as soon as Richie walks in the door.

On the other hand, he wants to fuck himself on _something_ , and Richie’s dick is three thousand miles away.

He pulls his sweatpants and boxer-briefs back up, snapping the waistband over his hips, and pushes himself off the couch, texting as he stumbles down the hallway.

**Eddie**  
Not yet, getting the lube now. I just don’t want to come before we can video chat.  
Like I said, I’m saving it for you.

**Richie**  
eds. you have no idea what that does to me

Eddie feels like he can hear the whine in Richie’s tone even over text. He yanks his bottoms off and throws himself on the bed, dragging his palm through the slick precome at the tip of his dick and twisting his hand down, making his hips jump. As he reaches for the bottle of lube, still on the bed from earlier, he imagines Richie shifting in the back seat of his Lyft, dragging his hand over his thick cock in the shifting streetlights.

He pops the cap on the bottle and then pauses, realizing that as soon as he slicks up his fingers it’s going to become a lot harder to simultaneously type and tend to himself. There’s something he wants to say to Richie about all of this—especially since Richie seems to be similarly affected by the idea of Eddie delaying his own orgasm—but he’s not sure exactly how to say it. He taps his blunt fingernail against the back of his phone before starting to type.

**Eddie**  
I like it too. You’ve made me so frantic to get off lately that it’s kinda nice to tease myself like this.

**Richie**  
jesus

Cool, he seems to be into that. Assuming that’s a good “jesus”. But Eddie’s heart is still pounding as he types what comes next.

**Eddie  
** I think I wouldn’t mind you teasing me either.

It shouldn’t be a big deal to say that, but somehow it is. It is, because… Because he’s told Richie that he’s touching himself (and that was a big step, sure), and he’s told Richie what he thought about while he got off (and that was even bigger), and he’s even sent pictures of himself doing it (and that was _huge_ ), but this… this is the closest he’s gotten to asking Richie to do something specific to him, _for_ him. For Eddie, _asking_ is monumental.

Because the Richie in his fantasies is kind of a tease. Teasing with his words, his deeds, sliding the head of his cock over Eddie’s desperate hole. Richie teases Eddie constantly in daily life, but in the bedroom he is doting, eager to give Eddie everything he wants before he even knows he wants it. Eddie’s not sure what it would be like to have real-life Richie say the things that fantasy Richie says ( _“—bet you’d settle for my fingers at this point, wouldn’t you, just to feel_ something—”), but the idea sends a shiver down his spine. He can’t help but wonder.

Richie is typing.

**Richie**  
yeah fuck youve teased me so much tonight i think you deserve a taste of your own medicine  
…was that sexy or just weird? lol

The motion of Eddie’s hand on his cock stutters. He snorts.

**Eddie  
** Please don’t say “lol” when you’re dirty talking to me.

**Richie**  
roger dodger

**Eddie**  
And it was sexy.

**Richie**  
oh good  
because i would like to tease you, eds. like you said on the phone about me teasing you with the head of my dick? ive been thinking about that all day  
fuck id get you so desperate for it

Eddie’s hand resumes its motion, and now he really is itching to slide a finger or two inside himself. Or maybe just rub over the ring of his asshole. He raises the opened bottle of lube and begins to coat his fingers. He can leave his dick for now; he just wants something inside him.

**Eddie**  
Yeah?

**Richie**  
yeah youd get so wet god i fucking love it when youre soaking  
i cant believe how lucky i am youre so fucking hot eddie

**Eddie**  
So are you, you’re so big it drives me crazy.  
Bet you could hold me down and tease me until I’m begging for it.

**Richie**  
yeah would you like that? you want me to make you beg for me to fuck you?

_Would_ he? _Does_ he? He’s not sure, honestly, but he knows the _idea_ of being driven wild with need for Richie’s cock makes his stomach clench and his toes flex and— fuck, it feels good to slide a finger inside, and then another, stretching himself, but it’s not enough, the video of Richie sliding his hand over his cock in the darkened back seat is blazing behind Eddie’s eyes, making him yearn for Richie to drive into him, stretch him open, make him feel _full_.

**Eddie**  
Yeah I do, fuck I need you inside me.

**Richie**  
god i want that. i wanna fuck you so bad  
please send me another picture eds i need to see you touching yourself

Barely thinking, Eddie snaps one perfunctorily: his hard dick leaking against his stomach, his arm reaching down between his legs. Immediately, Richie is typing.

**Richie**  
fuuuuccckkk look at you youre fucking drooling babe you miss my cock that bad?

**Eddie**  
You know I do. Seeing that video of you makes me want more. My fingers really aren’t enough, Richie

**Richie**  
you know you dont have to settle for just fingers

Eddie pauses. What does that mean? Does Richie mean that pretty soon he’ll be at the hotel and can talk him through it? Are they going to enter some sort of sext-based scenario, in which they pretend Richie really is here and is going to fuck him?

**Eddie**  
??

**Richie**  
check the bottom drawer of my nightstand

Anticipation building, Eddie crawls to Richie’s side of the bed and pulls the drawer open. Nothing immediately pops out at him, so he rummages around. Then his fingers brush against something soft and rubbery. He grasps it with a jolt, his face flushing hot with embarrassment as he pulls out—

**Eddie**  
A dildo??

Eddie is staring. A dildo. It’s a _dildo_. Right? He doesn’t think he has ever actually seen a dildo in the… well, not _flesh_. In person, let’s say. Or— not _in a person_ either. Fuck, he’s never seen a dildo _in real life_ , okay? And there’s nothing particularly lurid about this one at first glance. It’s black but not in a fetishizing way, that’s just the color of the silicone, and it’s not, like, _huge_ or anything. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s smaller than his own dick, though the idea of comparing them directly is far too mortifying for him to handle. It doesn’t even look all that much like a penis, actually, although there’s no mistaking the inspiration for its shape. The tip is slightly bulbous, with some small ridges along one side, and the shaft is ribbed, and it has a very wide, curved base with (he squints) something that looks like a button, which he presses out of curiosity and then yelps and drops it when the thing buzzes to life in his hands.

**Richie**  
it’s not a dildo, eds. it’s a vibrator. 😍

**Eddie**  
YEAH I FIGURED IT OUT THANKS

**Richie**  
lolololol  
just got to the hotel see you in 5

Eddie only barely registers Richie’s text. He’s too busy staring at the vibrator undulating on the bed before him. It’s not just vibrating, is the thing. It’s… _thrusting_. The ribbed material around the shaft is not just for sensation but acts as a kind of accordion, allowing it to piston forward at the same time as it vibrates and rotates and wriggles around and… _it’s_ _a lot_. He goggles at it.

Then he thinks, _Richie uses this_ , and his entire body smolders.

He scoops it up and carries it to the bathroom, turning it off so he can wash it with soap and warm water and pray that that’s what he’s supposed to do, because he’s suddenly aching to try it. The idea of fucking himself with the same toy Richie has used to get himself off is making his eyes unfocus and his cock fucking _pulse_.

By the time he gets back to the bed, clean vibrator in hand, Richie is calling him on FaceTime. Eddie accepts the call as he flings himself back on the bed.

“Hey,” he says. He can see in his little square in the corner that his cheeks are flushed.

“Hi there, stud,” Richie answers teasingly. “God, you look good.”

Eddie quirks an eyebrow as he drawls, “Well, I wish I could say the same, but…” because for some reason all Eddie can see is a shaky visual of Richie’s hotel room—bed, TV, kitchenette—and nothing of Richie’s face.

“Ah, yeah, sorry,” Richie says, “it’s my dumbass phone. The front-facing camera’s broken. I mean, I can turn it around…” And in a rush of blurry motion, he seems to whip the phone around to face him and gives a bright, exaggerated grin, halfway out of the frame. “Hello-o-o!” he sings, before returning it to the view of the room. “But then I can’t see _you_ , and I think of the two of us, you are the one whose face should be featured more prominently.”

Eddie glares. “What? No fucking way, I’m not gonna put on a show for your hotel’s hot plate, Richie.”

“It won’t be the hot plate, Eddie, it’ll be my dick as soon as I get these pants off,” Richie laughs, and Eddie sees a blur of the ugly hotel carpet as Richie walks over to the bed. “Christ, that’s funny, though. Put on a show for the hotel’s hot plate. Can I steal that? I’m gonna steal that.”

“In what context would that phrase make sense?”

“When I write a joke about— _mmf_ —how my boyfriend only gets horny when I go on tour,” Richie says, grunting as he undoes his jeans and yanks them off.

Eddie frowns. “Richie, I told you, it’s not that I—”

“I know, I know, Eds,” Richie says kindly, “and I believe you. But you gotta admit, spinning it that way is ripe for standup. Now then.” Eddie hears a plush _whump_ of a comforter as Richie swings his legs up onto the bed, and suddenly the camera is full of Richie’s boxers, patterned with bicycles, and his broad hand rubbing over the front. “I believe we left it at ‘vibrator’.”

Eddie flushes hot again, looking down at the momentarily forgotten vibrator. “Oh, yeah,” he says, his ears burning. “So you, uh… you’ve used this?”

“Ah,” says Richie, with an intake of breath. “I thought that might be a thing. Listen, I promise I cleaned it afterwards, very thoroughly, every single time—”

Eddie’s mind is reeling. “You used it _multiple times_?” he gasps, staring at the thing in his hand.

_Richie alone in his bedroom, eyes squeezed shut, sliding his big hand over his thick cock, the black base of the vibrator rocking between his thighs, pistoning into him as he cries out—_

“Yeah… Look, Eds, if that’s grossing you out, you don’t have to—”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie sputters. “It’s not gross. It’s— Richie, it’s so fucking hot.”

“…Really?”

“ _Yes_. I didn’t know you…” Eddie feels the blush creeping over his face again. “I didn’t know that you liked that, too.”

“Oh.” Richie sounds surprised. He’s stroking the outline of his half-hard cock with one finger. “Yeah, I-I do. Yeah, I mean. If you ever wanted to do it that way… I would like that.”

Heat spikes in Eddie’s stomach, and he lets out a ghost of a sound. Richie answers with a louder groan, and Eddie sees his hand clench on his dick.

“Do you…” Eddie licks his lips. “Would you rather we…? I mean, I didn’t know… I guess I just _assumed_ —”

“Eds,” Richie says, and his tone is surprisingly serious, “I will do whatever you want. I love you, and you’re hottest dude on the goddamn planet, and all I wanna do is make you feel good. Does me fucking you make you feel good?”

Eddie feels his cheeks heating up again. “Yeah, it really does.”

“Fuck. Good. Then let’s just focus on that for right now and cross the bridge of you fucking me when we come to it. Or come _on_ it. Or how about coming on each other?” he jokes.

Eddie purses his lips thoughtfully. “I think it could be hot.”

Richie groans, hips jerking slightly beneath his hand. “Okay, I meant it as a joke, but Jesus Christ. I really need to stop underestimating this new, horny Eddie. Please tell me more about the horny thoughts you’ve been having, Eddie 2.0. You want me to tease you?”

“Yeah,” says Eddie, a little breathily. He palms his dick at the thought. “When I was jerking off last night, I kept thinking of you drawing it out. Making me wait for it.”

“Wait for my dick? Wait to come?”

“Both,” Eddie admits. “But especially to come. It feels good to make it last.”

“God, yeah. And you’ve been waiting for me all night, haven’t you? I’m sorry, babe, I haven’t been there to take care of you.”

“Or to watch me take care of myself,” Eddie says, daringly, as he squeezes some lube onto his fingers and then, after a second of consideration, the head of the vibrator. It’s not as intimidating as television led him to believe sex toys are, but he still wants to make sure it’s fucking _slathered_.

“Or that,” Richie agrees, his voice strained and cracking.

Before Eddie’s eyes, Richie reaches into his boxers and pulls out his hardening cock. It’s thick and twitching beneath his hand, and Eddie realizes that he’s never taken the time to really _look_ at Richie’s dick. He’s touched it before, of course, but in the dark, usually under the covers. With touch as his only sense, Eddie knows Richie’s dick is hot and solid; it makes Richie hiss and writhe when Eddie timidly drags his hand over it, as though Eddie’s inexperience with other men is no barrier to Richie’s enjoyment and the mere fact that it’s _Eddie_ doing it to him is what’s driving him wild. The first couple times Eddie touched Richie, something about his reaction had made Eddie feel almost embarrassed, as though Richie were exaggerating it for Eddie’s benefit, taking pity on him, _humoring_ him, and— and there’s that word again, the same one Richie used to describe what he thought of Eddie having sex with him.

Have both of them just been assuming the other was pretending to enjoy sex just to… what? Be _nice_? When have either of them ever been disingenuously _nice_ with each other? What a ridiculous concept.

“So you really don’t mind that I’ve never been with another guy,” Eddie says, as though he’s realizing it for the first time.

Richie’s hand falters for a bit before continuing. “Uh, no,” says Richie, laughingly. “I really, really don’t. I knew you long before either of us had ever been with _anyone_ , Eds, and I would have given anything to be your first. It’s more than enough for me now that I get to be your first anything.” He continues stroking over his cock, his voice warm. “What made you think of that?”

Eddie snorts, more at himself than anything else, and smiles. “I don’t know. Guess I’m just realizing how much of an idiot I am for worrying.”

“Well. Same here.” Eddie can hear the lopsided smile in Richie’s voice; it spills through his teeth and lips in a seesaw that warms Eddie from head to toe and settles somewhere in his guts, coiling up in a comforting, blooming heat. “Now,” says Richie, “tell me more about these horny thoughts, Eds, because I am dying to give you the phone sex you so delightfully begged for earlier via text.”

Eddie laughs and uses the lube on his fingers to give his dick a few slick tugs. The sensation makes him draw in a sharp breath; tonight has really been a rollercoaster, in terms of the hardness of his dick, and he’s only just now realizing how tightly he’s wound up. “Yeah,” he breathes, “I’ll tell you, Rich.”

“Please,” Richie says, like a prayer.

“I thought about you,” Eddie says, letting his eyes fall shut, allowing his imagination to drift back to last night, “watching me touch myself. Watching me… fuck myself on my own fingers.”

“God,” Richie grits out, so close to the phone’s mic that the hard _G_ is a burst of harsh air. “I want to see it so bad, Eds, please, could you…?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Eddie rests the phone on his chest for a moment so he can switch to the rear camera. A split second after it flips, he hears Richie groan brokenly into the microphone, as though the sight of Eddie lightly twisting his hand over the head of his dick is absolutely devastating.

“ _Eddie_ ,” Richie groans, mirroring his motion on his own cock. “What else, what else?”

“You wouldn’t even touch me,” Eddie goes on, “just watch me from the edge of the bed. From— from the doorway,” he says, and the thought didn’t occur to him until just that second, but suddenly it’s setting him alight. “Like you just came home and… _found me_ …”

Richie _moans_. “Yeah, _fuck_ ,” he sighs, “like you couldn’t even wait for me to get home.”

“Like I needed something in me so bad I couldn’t wait another minute.”

“God, imagine,” says Richie, “if I came home from this tour and you were on the bed, riding your own fingers.”

Heat shoots down Eddie’s spine, his hips shuddering as he fucks into his fist. “Yeah,” he says, voice low, “or fucking myself with the toy you use to get yourself off.”

“Jesus, Eddie.” Richie’s voice is awestruck; Eddie pictures his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. “If I came home to that, I honestly might cream my pants just looking at you.”

And normally the phrase _cream my pants_ would make Eddie grimace, but right now the image of Richie’s cock stiffening in seconds under his clothes has Eddie groaning, aching anew to have something inside him. He trails his hand down the sensitive crease of his thighs, over the taut tendon, to slide a finger back inside. He wasn’t stretching himself earlier so his hole is not exactly loose, but it’s not tight either; his first finger enters easily, and Eddie hears Richie’s breath hitch on the phone.

“Fuck, Eddie,” Richie breathes. “I don’t know what it is about you doing that to yourself, but it drives me nuts. It makes me want to, _hahh_ —” He cuts himself off with a moan as his hips jerk upwards, off the bed, one thick, hairy thigh falling open.

“Want to what?” Eddie asks, needing to know. He rubs the pad of his second finger over the ring of his hole for a moment, teasing himself just a bit before sinking in.

“I… I…” Richie pauses, his hand working over himself. “I just wanna make you feel good, Eds,” he finally says. “Just… whatever _you_ want me to do, I don’t care, whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

Eddie feels his eyebrows twitch. There’s no way that’s what Richie was about to say. And though it’s hard to care right now, with his dick leaking on his stomach and his fingers brushing his prostate, he still feels an urge to _know_ —

“But I, _mm_ , want to do what you wanna do, too,” Eddie says, pitching his voice low, coaxing. “I came up with all this stuff, it’ll make me feel weird if you don’t have something you’re thinking of also.”

Richie slows the motion of his hand, clearly considering this. Eddie’s not sure—he can’t see Richie’s face—but there’s something about the intake of breath, the suddenly vulnerable tap of his thumb on the shaft of his cock, that allows Eddie to picture Richie’s expression so _clearly_. It’s the same one he’s seen before countless times before but never understood until six weeks ago, when Richie made that face—guarded but contemplating exposure, as though weighing the fallout of winching down the gate and allowing barbarians to storm the castle—and then looked up into Eddie’s face and said for the first time, _It’s just that… I love you so much, Eddie, it makes me feel like I’m dying._ Like he had decided things couldn’t get any worse, like he was dying just as much of the _not_ saying.

That’s when Eddie finally found out what that face means. It means, _If I tell him, he’ll never want anything to do with me again._

“I don’t care what it is, Rich,” Eddie says firmly. “I love you no matter—”

“I wanna eat you out,” Richie blurts.

Eddie goes still, not even breathing. His entire body _burns_.

He swallows. “Eat me out, as in…?”

“Mouth on asshole, yeah,” Richie says, like it’s a little bit of a joke, or a little bit of a dare—but then, as though he’s realizing for the first time that Eddie can’t actually _see_ him right now, he plows onward, large hand jerking himself hard and fast: “I’d press my tongue up against your hole, work you open along with your fingers, get you wet and dripping and _sloppy_ for me, Eds, and I know that’s— that’s filthy, and unsanitary, and you probably hate the whole concept, but in my mind you love it, you _love_ how good I do it to you, and you… you always have, whenever I…”

He trails off, breathing heavily, and Eddie… Eddie _thinks_. The thing is, Richie is right; the concept of Richie mouth on his asshole is not super appealing. He thinks he would be too caught up in the transfer of bacteria to enjoy himself… although he has a hard time believing it’s something he would like even if he weren’t. It can’t really feel that good, can it? On the other hand, that’s how he felt about _all_ of this three weeks ago, so who is he to judge? If Richie really wants to (he gulps) _eat him out_ , Eddie can just make sure he’s showered beforehand, for his peace of mind.

“Sorry, Eds,” Richie is muttering, his hand still, “I just… You know I’ve felt this way about you for a long time, I’ve thought about you so much, touching you, tasting you, making you feel good, and… that’s all I wanna do, make you feel good, Eds, I promise—”

Eddie switches on the vibrator.

The loud buzz shuts Richie up immediately. “…Fuck,” he groans in recognition.

Eddie holds it up in front of the camera. “Think you could eat me out around this?” he asks, his tone teasing to conceal his skepticism. His face is on fire behind the phone.

“ _Fuuuuck_.” Richie’s hand starts moving again, his wrist flicking.

Eddie balances his phone against his chin, aiming the camera as he squeezes more lube over the vibrator. He grins a little as Richie’s voice catches.

“You know, I’ve felt this way about you a long time, too, Rich,” Eddie whispers, knowing his voice must sound breathy and close. Richie loves watching those ASMR videos; Eddie hopes this gives him little tingles down the back of his neck. And that watching him work the lube up and down the jerking vibrator gives him a deeper, needier kind of heat along his spine.

“God, if I came home and you had that inside you, Eddie…”

“Yeah?” Eddie hits the button again to change the setting until it lands on a light vibration, not nearly as wiggly as when he first turned it on. ( _Does that mean that was the last setting Richie used?_ he wonders, and his stomach clenches hot at the thought.) He drags the head of the toy down his abdomen, over his dick and taut balls, to prod at his loosened opening. The vibration resonates against him, and he knows it’s not going to take long after he pushes it inside.

“What would you do, Richie?” he asks, voice tight as he adds pressure.

“I… I would…” Richie draws in a breath through his nose. “I would _watch_.”

Eddie _moans_ as the toy breaches his entrance, eyes unfocusing, mouth falling open. His hips and thighs and cock and _veins_ are awash with warm, buzzing sensation, and his entire body is fucking singing, _ululating_ in his head, so loud that it’s a long moment before he realizes that Richie is still talking to him.

“Oh god, oh my god, fuck, Eddie, let me see you, please, _please_ —”

Panting hard, barely thinking, Eddie looks hazily around for something to lean the phone against. He settles on the bedside lamp. When he switches it back to the front-facing camera he can tell the angle is a little weird, more ceiling than anything else, but he doesn’t _care_ because when he gets his knees under him to lean over, the toy shifts inside him to _tap-tap-tap-tap_ against his prostate and his eyes squeeze shut and he chokes out a desperate moan directly into the camera.

“Oh my god, _Eddie_ ,” Richie gasps, and Eddie cracks an eye open. Richie must be balancing his phone on his pillow or something because he has both hands on his cock now, one gripped around the base, the other sliding up and down, fast and hard. “Fuck, babe, if I walked in and saw you like that, on your knees, fucking yourself on my vibrator since my dick wasn’t around, I don’t, _ah_ , I don’t know how I could stop from touching you.”

“Y-you can touch me,” Eddie bites out.

“I _can_?”

Richie’s voice is strangely childlike, like he’s been told he found a golden ticket to… whoever-the-fuck’s chocolate factory, Eddie can’t really _think_ right now, but—but the fact that Richie is surprised is enough to make him choke out a laugh.

“You’d fucking _better_ ,” Eddie groans.

Richie whines in return. Eddie shifts on the bed so Richie can see all of him, on all fours, with the wide black base of the vibrator shaking between his cheeks, bumping against his perineum, making his eyes roll into the back of his head.

“Yeah, fuck yeah, Eds, I’ll touch you,” Richie says, eager as ever to please. “I’ll watch you riding back on that toy until you can’t take it anymore, until you’re so close you feel like you’re gonna fall apart.”

Eddie whimpers, feeling a lot like that _now_. He reaches back, fumbling his fingers along the base to find the button again, inadvertently pressing the toy in deeper as he does so, making his hips jerk, fucking the air.

“Then what?” he pants, just to keep Richie talking. He loves Richie talking.

He finds the button and has to hold it, pressing the toy’s head against his prostate until the vibration kicks up and the toy begins to thrust (fuck) and piston ( _fuck_ ) just the way Richie apparently likes it ( _FUCK_ ) and he’s starting to tremble all over.

“Then I’ll step up behind you, kneel on the bed,” Richie says, and Eddie wishes he had the fucking wherewithal to watch Richie tug at his long, thick cock, but he’s mashing his face into the pillow, busy trying not to cry out. “And I’ll come up behind you, spread your ass so I can get a good look at what’s fucking you so good when I’m not there—”

“ _Fuck_ —”

“—and I’ll lean down and pull it out, just a _bit_ , and—”

“— _Richie_ —” Eddie whines.

“—and you’d sound just like that, yeah,” Richie agrees, overcome, “ _fuck_ , all desperate, but I’m only pulling it out a little, Eds, just so I can get my tongue up against your skin there, stretched around it, just to taste you—”

And Eddie is so turned on that even the idea of Richie (he grits his teeth) _eating him out_ can’t spoil this for him; in fact, it’s heightening it, making him shake, there’s something so deliciously _filthy_ about the idea, and how hoarse Richie’s voice is going at just the thought… Eddie’s hand flies to his dick, leaking like a faucet and so sensitive he moans as soon as he touches it with his fingertips.

“—and then, Eds, I’d… I’d pull it out of you slowly, _so slowly_ you’d feel every inch, every millimeter, and replace it with my tongue and my fingers and then finally my— my cock, when I got you begging for it, because you’d be so open and ready and _close_ and I’d be close, too, I’m, ah _, god_ —” Richie’s breath catches. “Fuck, I’m so close, Eddie, I can’t keep this up, please tell me you’re almost—”

“Yeah, yeah, _yeah_ , _god_ ,” Eddie chants, his hand working over himself, feeling a quaking heat beginning to spread outward from his center, shaking loose his very _bones_ until he’s not sure whether it’s the vibration or his swiftly building orgasm or if there’s even a difference.

“Fuck, Eddie, you look so fucking good, I can’t, I’m gonna—”

“Yeah, Rich, come on, you can—” His head is spinning, the heat, the pressure, the resonating vibration as he begins to tip over the edge. “Come on, Richie, come inside me, I want— _god, I’m_ —”

“Oh my _fuck_ , Eddie _, god_ —”

Eddie’s hips thrust forward into his hand in tremulous, jerky movements as he comes, spilling all over the bedspread and his fist, dripping down his knuckles. It lasts so _long_ , way longer than it ever has before, even last night, and he imagines Richie kneeling behind him, fucking him through it, fingers digging into his hips (“ _God, look at you, Eds, you’re coming so much, so long, on my cock. You fucking love it, don’t you? You love what I do to you._ ”) and somehow the Richie in his fantasies still manages to say even filthier, more taunting things and the _Eddie_ in his fantasies does love it. He fucking _does_.

He gasps as his hand finally slows its motion. Gradually, dreamily, he swims back to the surface of his consciousness, and he reaches back with the other to turn off the toy. In the strange quiet left behind, he realizes the Richie of real life is quietly laughing.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Eddie demands, instantly bristling.

“Nothing, it’s just…” Richie chuckles, and Eddie can see his soft, come-coated stomach shifting with every laugh. “I’m a little bit in shock, honestly. I’ve never felt so thoroughly fucked through the phone.”

Eddie presses his lips together, feeling defensive, and pushes himself back to sit on his ankles. He winces as the toy shifts against him, where he’s oversensitive now. He pulls it out slowly, with a hiss.

“God, you’re so fucking hot,” Richie breathes, and Eddie feels a flush creep up his neck. He sounds almost like he’s drooling.

“How am I hot _now_?” Eddie asks skeptically, looking down at himself. Come is drying on his hand and dick and abdomen, not to mention the bedspread. He’s sweaty and disheveled. He’s a mess.

“First of all, you’re hot always,” says Richie, “but especially right now. Your face and chest are all red and shit, your hair’s all over the place, your dick’s still pretty hard since you always take a bit to go down… You look like you just had the orgasm of the century. Fuck. I wish I could be there with you. Wish I could cuddle you the way you like,” and his voice goes soft and yearning at the end, wistful.

“The way _you_ like,” Eddie grumbles, self-conscious.

“The way I like,” Richie agrees, and Eddie can hear a lazy smile in his voice.

“I… I like it, too,” Eddie admits.

“Aw, shoot. I know ya do, cutie.”

Eddie smiles lopsidedly into the camera. He wishes fiercely in that moment that Richie’s damn front-facing camera weren’t broken. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, Eds. God, so much.” Richie draws in a long, sniffling breath, and now it’s Eddie’s turn to laugh.

“You sap,” Eddie says fondly.

_Sniiiifff._ “Like a tree!”

“You _are_ a tree.”

“Well, you can climb me any time, baby.” And Eddie doesn’t know how it’s possible to hear someone’s eyebrows waggle on the phone, but Richie achieves it.

“Maybe I will,” Eddie returns, challenging.

“Oh?” Richie sounds delighted at Eddie, sparkly, the way he always gets after they finish, and he draws Eddie up close to him and trails his fingers from Eddie’s shoulder to elbow and back, talking into his temple, pressing compulsive kisses there as though he can’t believe his luck.

“Yeah,” says Eddie, looking down and feeling his face light on fire. “Maybe I really will be in here with the vibrator when you come home. Maybe you really will watch me until you can’t take it anymore and have to have me.”

“‘Have to have you.’ Eds, you say the filthiest shit when we’re in the middle of it and then you revert to a blushing maiden once you bust a nut.”

“Fuck off.”

Richie barks out a laugh, shifting in the bed until he appears to be more upright. The view is more of his hairy, knobby knees now and less of his spent cock, which Eddie is surprised to feel disappointed not to see.

“You saying you wanna do what we were dirty talking about for real?”

“Uhh.” Eddie swallows. He does. At least, he thinks he does. The thought of being practically senseless with desperation while Richie just watches him, talks to him, until he can’t take it anymore— “Yeah, I do,” he admits. “I think it would be hot.”

“Oh, no question it would be hot, you’d be there.”

“Richie…”

“I’m down,” Richie says, holding a thumbs-up in front of the camera, by his left knee. “Whatever you wanna do, Eds, I wanna do. Although, uh…” He clears his throat. “I get if you don’t me want to, you know…”

It takes Eddie a moment to grasp what he’s referring to. “Oh,” he says, blushing. “You mean…?”

“Yep,” says Richie, with obvious false bravado, “the ol’ mouth on ass.”

Eddie swallows. “Uh, well?” He pauses, considering. There’s no harm, he supposes; it’s not like Richie’s asking Eddie to do it to him. And he does want to do stuff for Richie, too, since he feels like he suddenly has all of these new desires that are frankly overwhelming, even to Eddie himself. Richie ought to get something out of it, too. “I wouldn’t mind trying it, I guess,” he concedes.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” says Eddie, a bit more firmly. And if he doesn’t like it, he can just say so. Eddie doesn’t have a problem telling Richie what shit he _doesn’t_ like; it’s the stuff he _does_ that’s apparently a challenge.

“Wow, all right,” breathes Richie. “So that makes it—” he lifts his left wrist, checking a non-existent watch “—T-minus nine days before I get to walk in on you using my vibrator and then eat your ass.”

Eddie shivers involuntarily at the description. “Sounds like it,” he says.

“Whew. It’s gonna be a long nine days.”

***

Actually, as far as Eddie’s concerned, the time goes by shockingly fast. To his surprise, his libido remains high, though it has descended back through the hole it blew in the metaphorical roof on that first night. It seems to have settled at a rate of once-a-day overwhelming need to ( _bust a nut_ ) orgasm. Generally, he saves it for their nightly phone calls, in which they build out the initial scenario a bit more. How Eddie will be on the bed, how long Richie will wait before touching him, just how Richie’s going to fuck him with his tongue and fingers and cock. Eddie’s still a little hesitant about the tongue part, but he can’t deny the shocking heat the idea sends through him when he’s horny. When he’s not, though, he can only imagine feeling self-conscious.

Finally, Sunday arrives. The day Richie is returning. Normally, Eddie would pick him up at the airport, even though LAX is a living nightmare, but Richie pointed out that they couldn’t very well enact the scenario of Richie coming home and finding Eddie _preoccupied_ if Eddie drove him to the front door. (“What’re you gonna do, make me sit in the car for twenty minutes?”)

So Eddie is at home.

Waiting.

Waiting is… weird. It sets him on edge, and not in a fun way. He keeps checking the clock on the wall, checking the United app, checking the clock on his phone—even though he’s sure Richie will text him as soon as he lands, and he has an alarm set for his planned arrival time, and he knows roughly how it will all shake out, anyway:

Once he receives Richie’s first text, Eddie thinks it’ll probably be twenty minutes before Richie has his bags and gets in the Lyft. Then it’ll be another twenty before he’s home. Eddie will start when Richie texts him he’s in the Lyft.

He does _not_ want to start too early. For one, he doesn’t want to get too far along before Richie arrives, because he wants it to last. But for another, he honestly can’t imagine anything worse than kneeling on the bed, vibrator buzzing away in his ass, and checking his fucking watch.

So he busies himself with other things. Cleaning, mostly. He washes the vibrator again—soap and warm water and the foam that he ordered on Amazon after doing some research—dries it, and sets it on the bedside table. He stares at it as it wobbles a little on its curved, rocking-chair base. Something about the wobbling gets Eddie’s hackles up. It looks… expectant. Taunting. Like it’s sneering at him.

“ _Fuck_ you,” he says, and leaves the room.

In retrospect, that probably should have been his first clue that things were not going to go well.

Next, his alarm goes off. He waits five minutes, and then ten, without getting a text from Richie. Eddie checks the United app: on-time arrival. He drums his fingers on the counter anxiously.

**Eddie**  
Did you land all right?

Richie does not reply for another seventeen minutes. In that time, Eddie gets up from the barstool, sits back down, gets up again, paces through the bedroom to their bathroom, scrubs the shower, washes his hands, paces back through the bedroom, glares at the vibrator as he passes it, and returns to the counter to pick up his phone.

**Richie**  
yep, got the bags im in the lyft now, eta 10 mins 😉

He stares at the phone, adrenaline spiking in his gut. Ten minutes!? That’s not _nearly_ enough time!

He flies back down the hall to their bedroom and throws himself on the bed. His heart is racing as he pulls down his shorts, palming himself through the cotton of his underwear immediately. He’s soft. Obviously, he’s soft; he was just fucking _cleaning_ the fucking _shower_. He grits his teeth and rips his underwear off, too, so he can try to convince his dick to cooperate.

One solid minute of rubbing and squeezing and fondling—one solid minute _he does not have_ —and it still just lies there against his thigh. Like an unbaked crescent roll.

“Of course you fucking do this right now,” he hisses at it. “All fucking week it’s like, ‘Oh, a sales meeting, hm? The frozen foods aisle, you say? My time to shine!’ But _now_ you’ve got fucking stage fright.”

Once he realizes he’s probably not going to be able to bully his dick hard, he forces himself to take a deep breath. _Think sexy thoughts_ , he tells himself, eyes closed. _Sexy thoughts_.

Immediately, he goes to the one that’s been working for him all week: Richie saying breathily into the phone, “I love watching you get off.” The O.G. sexy thought, as far as Eddie’s brain is concerned. The primordial ooze of sexy thoughts.

And it does work, a little. A slight spike of heat. A pleasant tingle along his spine. His stubborn dick twitches against his leg, like it’s finally fucking listening.

He returns his hand to it, a little more gently, like he did that first night. He brushes fingertips over it lightly, just trying to enjoy the sensation.

“All right,” he murmurs, feeling his dick finally beginning to thicken, “next thought. Next sexy thought.”

He’s rewinding back through the past several days’ fantasies at this point, trying to land on one that’ll do it for him. There’s Richie fucking him in his lap while he watches Eddie jerk himself off, that’s pretty good. Richie watching in awe at how hard Eddie comes just from Richie’s fingers, from Eddie’s _own_ fingers. He settles for a while on good ol’ Richie sliding his cock along the cleft of his ass, teasing him until he’s begging for it, and by the time he’s done thinking of that, he’s respectably hard and feeling significantly calmer about— about—

He catches sight of the vibrator. He frowns. That thing is supposed to be _inside him_ by the time Richie gets home, so Richie can find him on all fours on the bed, comforter twisted in his clenched fists, gasping and desperate and, ideally, _dripping_. Richie _really_ likes it when Eddie’s that turned on—he’s made that _very_ clear—and Eddie really wants to give that to him today.

He looks down at his dick. It’s bone-fucking-dry.

_Oh, well,_ he thinks, trying to shove down his annoyance with his own anatomy. _That’s what lube is for_.

He reaches for the bottle and accidentally knocks the vibrator, so it gets to wobbling again, like a goddamn rocking horse. He holds it down so it stops, but when he pulls his hand away, he accidentally knocks it again.

“Fuck,” he grits out, slamming his hand down on it.

He lifts up his hand. The vibrator rocks again.

Eddie sees red. “ _Fuck!_ ”

With a clatter, he knocks it over on its side so it lies still. He glares at it triumphantly.

“Fucking showed you, asshole,” he grumbles, settling back onto the bed with the bottle of lube.

He’s soft again.

At this point (as he will think later), he probably should have given up. There is clearly no way this whole scenario is going to go the way they planned if he’s screaming at vibrators, at his own dick, at the bottle of lube when he squeezes it so hard in his frustration that the top jumps off and it squirts a big glob all down his forearm. He should take several deep, calming breaths and just be happy that Richie is so close to home, because he loves him and he’s missed him and he’s almost here.

That’s what he _should_ do.

Here is what he does:

Eddie whips the bottle of lube clear across the room. It slams into the wall with a _bang!_ and dislodges one of Richie’s tour posters so it swings down, helter-skelter, on only one nail. It rocks back and forth. (Eddie takes a sharp, angry breath in through his nose, glowering at it from the bed, as a nerve twitches in his eyelid.) Then he scoops up the mass of lube sliding down his arm in his opposite hand and slathers it over his hole.

The feeling makes him squirm. It is way, _way_ more than he normally uses, but he tells himself that’s okay, because he’s gonna get this godforsaken, smug-ass toy inside him if it’s the last thing he fucking does.

He slides a finger in, and then another shortly after. To his relief, the feeling actually calms him down a bit. This is something he _likes_ , that feels _good_. His dick starts to fill out again as he drags his fingers slowly, methodically, in and out and apart, stretching his rim, brushing softly against his prostate the way he’s learned to do to himself. He returns his other hand to his dick, lightly stroking it back to hardness, pressing up with the fingers inside him. Coaxing himself, trying to relax.

Then he hears Richie’s keys in the front door.

His heart jumps into his throat. He leaps off the bed, one hand still inside him as he teeters, bow-legged, over to where he threw the lube.

“Fuck,” he whispers, scooping it up. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He trots back to the bed and lies down again, upending the bottle over the tip of the toy and squeezing, like he’s pouring chocolate syrup on a sundae. “C’mon, c’mon,” he mutters, as he hears the telltale sound of the front door opening and closing. Finally, he thinks to remove the hand from between his legs and uses it to smooth the lube all over the toy.

He hears Richie set his keys in the bowl by the door, and then he switches on the vibration. The toy jerks in his hand so violently that the suddenly shimmying head flicks a wet droplet of lube right into his eye.

He wrenches his head back, blinking furiously and rubbing at his eye with the back of his wrist. He clenches his teeth so hard he feels a pop in his jaw, barely fucking keeping it together enough not to hurl the thing out the fucking window.

Then he hears Richie in the foyer, musing aloud as though to a studio audience, “Hmm, no Eddie. Strange. I wonder what’s making that buzzing sound!” And Eddie’s not sure if Richie is doing it to make him laugh because he knows Eddie can hear him, or if Richie is acting out a scene simply to amuse himself, but something about it charms Eddie so deeply that he finally stops, takes a deep breath, and gets a steady hold on the reins of his rage.

He rolls over onto his hands and knees, lowers the vibration setting, and brings the toy ( _Richie’s_ toy, he reminds himself, which is appropriate because he hates the thing for being stupid at the same time as it makes him feel so goddamn good) between his legs. He presses it slowly, steadily against his hole, trying to force himself to enjoy the pulse against the skin before it pushes inside.

He closes his eyes and grits his teeth. The sensation is good but a little overwhelming, a little _too much too fast_. He puts a hand on his mercifully hard dick to help take the edge off the feeling, and begins stroking, but he’s— what the fuck, he’s still not wet at _all_. Fucking _seriously_? He cracks an eye open to look, and—

“Well, well, well.” Richie is leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. He looks amused. “What have we here?”

“Richie,” Eddie gasps, surprised in spite of himself. He accidentally jerks the toy when he jumps so it jolts too hard against his prostate. “Ah, _fuck_ —”

“Looks like you couldn’t wait to get that in you, huh?” Richie says with a smirk.

Eddie glares at him. “I thought you would, _unff_ , take longer,” he explains, still wincing from the vibration.

“And you couldn’t wait ten minutes for me to… fuck you,” Richie goes on, voice strained, his cadence odd. “You had to… fuck yourself on my toy and— and couldn’t, uh, wait ten minutes? Which I already _said_?” He ends on a questioning note and clearly nearly grins self-consciously at his fumbling before schooling his face back into a mask of nonchalance.

Eddie hides his face in his arms to avoid rolling his eyes.

“God, you look fucking good, though,” Richie breathes, and _that_ sounds genuine. Eddie raises his head to peek at him, and Richie’s eyes are huge, taking him in. It sends up a little spark of heat at the base of Eddie’s spine. Richie starts to step into the room but freezes, his face altering as he seems to remember his mark, like he really _is_ on a sitcom and has his blocking mapped out on the stage. _Stand at doorway. Say line_. _Cross downstage to bed on cue._

Eddie closes his eyes and lets his head hang down again, his face on fire. He is mortified. He wants to turn the lights back off forever and pull the covers over his head and never try anything new ever again.

Richie clears his throat. “So you, uh,” he says haltingly, “gonna touch your cock?”

That’s it.

Eddie collapses face first on the bed with a strangled, exasperated groan. He reaches back to turn off the toy but doesn’t even bother pulling it out.

“That didn’t sound much like a sexy moan,” Richie observes.

“Grrghh,” Eddie replies, face smushed into the bedspread.

“Are we cutting?”

_Like Eddie’s the fucking director on the set._ “Yeah. We’re cutting.”

“Whew, all right. Take five, everyone!”

Eddie can hear the playfulness in Richie’s voice when he says it, but he’s in no mood to respond. He feels self-conscious and utterly exposed. It’s like when they were seven years old, and Bill and Stan and Richie said they were going to Bill’s house to play and Eddie stamped his foot and cried about how they only ever played at Bill’s house or Richie’s house and no one ever came to _his_ house so then Bill and Stan and Richie came over into the oppressive, cloying potpourri of the Kaspbrak residence and they all had to play the Game of Life in whispers in the living room while his mother watched TV and kept one eye on them, like a muumuu-clad gargoyle. Eddie’s stomach twisted up tight like crinkled tinfoil at their cowed expressions, _especially_ Richie’s. And he felt small, so small and tyrannical, like his mom, forcing them to do something they didn’t want. Like no one would ever want to be his friend again if this was the shit he made them do.

Richie crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. The bedframe squeaks as he does, wood against Ikea wood, and somehow the noise is so much louder than it’s ever been. Eddie can’t stand it.

Then Richie’s warm, rough hand is on his upper back, between his shoulder blades. It must be on the sunburst of a scar there, because he can only feel Richie’s fingertips at the edges; his palm is a ghost of pressure and heat, not true sensation.

“It’s good to see you,” Richie says quietly.

Eddie wants to cry.

“Can you please take that fucking vibrator out of me?” he asks instead, voice muffled.

Richie laughs. “’Course,” he says, and trails his hand down to Eddie’s ass. “Though, I gotta say, it is doing you a lot of favors, booty-wise.”

“Please don’t— _ahh_ —patronize me,” Eddie bites out, hissing as Richie removes it slowly. Despite the lube, he’s still smarting. Apparently he did not stretch himself adequately before attempting this.

“Not patronizing. Just the facts.” Richie leans over to set the toy down carefully on the bedside table, so carefully that it barely wobbles, not that Eddie cares much anymore. Clearly, he’s lost control of this whole scenario; who gives a shit if the fucking vibrator moves without his permission?

When Richie returns, he replaces his warm hand on the small of Eddie’s back, sliding over his skin, up his spine and down to palm his ass-cheeks, as though he can’t help himself.

“Are you all right?” Richie asks softly. “You seem upset.”

Eddie lets out another indistinct grown, burying his face deeper into his arms.

Richie’s hand smooths over his thighs. “Did I, uh, not do it right?” he whispers.

Eddie’s heart twists up in his chest. Of course Richie would think it was something _he_ did and not Eddie feeling like the biggest asshole on the planet.

“No, it wasn’t you,” he mumbles. He turns his head to rest his cheek on his forearms. “It was me.”

“Heard that before,” Richie quips.

Eddie sighs. “No, shut up, it _was_ me. I just couldn’t focus, and then I got mad because I couldn’t focus, and that made me even _less_ able to focus, and I should have just given up and waited for you to come home like a normal person but I couldn’t let the fucking toy _win_ so instead I got mad and threw the lube at the wall and knocked over your fucking poster and tried to put the toy in anyway and I don’t think I prepped myself enough and now my butthole fucking hurts. So believe me when I say it’s not you; it’s me.”

Richie’s hand continues to rub across Eddie’s bare back, his ass, his thighs. It feels nice, soothing. Most of all, it’s hard to stay frustrated when Richie’s fingers are sending little tingles up the back of his neck, making goosebumps prickle on his scalp.

“Plus,” Eddie drawls, with his last remaining shreds of exasperation, “I heard you do that dumbass take to the studio audience when you entered stage right.”

Richie barks out a laugh. “I’m just disappointed I didn’t get welcome applause!” he says. “Why did no one shout ‘Norm!’?”

“Maybe because _Cheers_ is almost as old as we are,” Eddie counters. “Which is… way too old to be concocting fucking… weird… sex scenarios.” He returns his face to his arms.

Richie is quiet. Then he puts his hand on Eddie’s side, nudging at him to scoot. “Here,” he says, pushing Eddie over so he can slide onto the bed as well. “Can I—?”

Eddie budges over on the bed, still face down, so Richie can fit beside him. Once Richie is lying next to him, his front along Eddie’s side, he props his head in one hand and allows the other to resume its motion.

“I don’t think it was weird,” Richie says, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Ha.”

“Seriously, I don’t. I thought it was hot that that’s what you wanted to do. I just didn’t think I was, uh… right for the part.”

Eddie laughs. “‘You couldn’t wait ten minutes?’” he says, pitching his voice low and dumb in an imitation of Richie.

“Ten fucking minutes!” Richie crows, patting Eddie’s ass to emphasize each word. “Line read of the century.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be very relieved to hear that— what do casting agents say? ‘We’re going in another direction’?”

“Yeah, but that’s usually when I point out that hiring me and my fivehead is actually a business investment. Extra ad space.”

Eddie snorts, and then laughs in earnest. He rolls onto his side so his back is pressed against Richie’s front, and Richie slings an arm around his front, to splay his hand across his lopsided chest. Richie noses against the back of his ear.

“I’m glad you’re home, by the way,” Eddie says into the open space in front of him. “I missed you.”

“Missed you, too, Eds.” He presses a kiss to the thin skin behind Eddie’s ear before he settles his head onto the pillow. “Feeling better?”

“A little,” Eddie admits begrudgingly. Like it’s just as embarrassing to admit that his embarrassment passed so easily.

“Cool,” says Richie. “So I can finally ask you what the _fuck_ you meant when you said you ‘couldn’t let the fucking toy win’.”

Eddie laughs and scrubs his clean hand over his face. “So I may have decided the toy is my nemesis.”

“And why is that, Edward?” Richie’s voice is teeming with suppressed laughter.

“Because it wouldn’t fucking stay still!” Eddie bursts out, gesturing hard. “When I put it down on the table, it wouldn’t stop rocking. And I’d put my hand on it to make it stop and then when I pulled it away it would just start rocking again!”

Richie is shaking the bed, he’s trying so hard to contain his laughter.

“It’s _true_!” Eddie protests, trying to avoid laughing himself. “It was like one of those… inflatable punching bag things. Like I’d hit it and it would just get right back up again. It was… It was mocking me, Richie,” he finishes, his tone grave.

Richie buries his face in the back of Eddie’s neck and laughs in warm sprays of breath all along his spine, pressing kisses in between, making Eddie shiver and giggle and his hair stand on end. Even his softened dick twitches, awoken again by the wet warmth of Richie’s breath and lips on his vertebrae.

“All right,” Richie says, when he has caught his breath. “I would like to rescind my earlier judgment. Your rage-foreplay with the vibrator was indeed a weird sex scenario.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie laughs, twining his fingers through Richie’s. He takes a beat, allowing them both to settle. “So you really didn’t think it was weird? What I wanted to try today?”

“I really, really didn’t.”

Eddie’s eyebrows twitch down. “And you don’t think it’s weird that I didn’t actually… like it? In real life?”

“You sure you didn’t like it?” Richie asks. “It wasn’t just me fucking it up? Or the vibrator mocking you?”

Eddie thinks. “I’m not totally sure,” he decides. “I guess it might have been. But regardless, I don’t think I’m really cut out for something like that. My anxiety was through the roof.”

“Makes sense,” Richie hums.

“But the idea of it was so hot when we were talking about it on the phone, or when I was thinking about it by myself,” says Eddie, biting his lip. “Don’t you think that’s fucked up?”

“No way,” says Richie, pulling back a little. “Fantasy is different from reality. Believe me, I would know; I’ve had enough horrified post-nut Pornhub realizations for one lifetime. Like, ‘Horny brain wanted _what_?’” He draws close again, pulling Eddie back against him. “Not that what you wanted to do was anywhere close to internet porn levels, but I’m just saying. I don’t think it’s weird that you would get off to the idea of something but not actually like it in real life.”

Eddie mulls it over. “Yeah, I guess,” he says skeptically.

“Plus, I kinda agree, on my end: I also don’t think I’m cut out to say shit like that to you,” Richie goes on, chuckling. “If either of us has to be the boss, I’d much rather it be you.”

“Really?”

He can feel Richie smile against his shoulder. “Is that a surprise?”

Eddie snorts. “Not at all, I was just being polite.”

Richie laughs in earnest. “You have never been polite to me in your _life_ ,” he says. “Not even _once_.”

“If I was ever polite to you, you would break up with me,” Eddie scoffs.

“Nah,” says Richie, warm and soft, drawing his knees up so they’re tucked up snugly behind Eddie’s. “I would never break up with you.”

Eddie closes his eyes, feeling sweet warmth flooding him. He clenches his fingers, interlaced with Richie’s, bringing them close against his cratered sternum. He sighs. He’s not sure how to respond.

“Well,” he says finally, “me neither.”

Richie buries his face in Eddie’s neck, hiding even though Eddie already can’t see him. Eddie can’t _see_ him, but he can _feel_ him, and Richie’s lips are pulled taut, his cheeks are bunched up, stubbly apples all soft underneath. He’s smiling, secretly, and it tickles somewhere in Eddie’s mind: them in the hammock in the clubhouse, Eddie’s stinky socked feet in Richie’s face, and Richie hiding his face in his comic book even while Eddie knew, he _knew_ , he was smiling.

(“The fuck are you smiling at, Trashmouth?”

“Your foot-stink, Eds. It’s just like your mom’s.”

“Fuck _off_ , Richie.”)

Now, they’re forty, and together, and in bed, pressed not head-to-foot in some halfhearted attempt at _just friends that’s all_ , but all along each other, the closest they can get, like they always wanted.

Well, not the _closest_ they can get.

Eddie turns his head, twisting into Richie, and Richie lifts up eagerly to meet his mouth. Eddie kisses him, hard and soft at the same time, like always, like he doesn’t know how else to be, and Richie melts against him, accepting all of it: rough and smooth, broken and mended.

He realizes, as he tastes Richie’s tongue beneath his own, that it’s their first kiss since Richie has come home. The taste is not spectacular, of course, just saliva with a hint of the spearmint gum Richie chews when he’s afraid Eddie won’t kiss him otherwise (Richie doesn’t seem to realize Eddie would kiss him, _has_ kissed him, but Eddie appreciates the spearmint nonetheless)—but it’s _Richie_.

And that’s what it’s about, really, for him. Richie being with him, whether he’s here physically or telephonically or— or _fantastically_ , who fucking cares? It’s Richie, and that’s amazing. It’s Richie and Eddie, and that’s _perfect_.

He knows he’ll never be able to say the words, so he tries to tell him with his kiss. When Richie twines their fingers together even more tightly and uses their joined hands to crush Eddie’s back snug against his broad chest, Eddie thinks he might have succeeded.

With a soft, wet sound, their mouths break apart. Lips still touching, Eddie says, “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Me, too.” Richie smiles against Eddie’s lips, pressing a few more kisses ( _bonus kisses_ , Richie calls them, as though he’s getting away with something) before Eddie readjusts, lying his head back on the pillow.

“I must admit, though,” Richie goes on, when Eddie turns his head back to face forward again, “I’m sad to hear your love affair with the Eclipse Thrusting Rotator Anal Probe, rated four-and-a-half stars, was so brief. I hope you two can put aside your differences for the greater good, a.k.a., my dick.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Really? But you’re home now. Your dick could just, uh, fuck me itself.”

“And my dick would love to,” Richie says, giving a little thrust with his hips. Eddie presses back into it, out of habit more than anything else, and Richie squeezes his hand, chuckling into his ear. “But I think I’ll be devastated if I never get to watch you fucking yourself with that vibrator ever again. How you sounded when you came? Like a fucking wet dream, I swear…”

Richie’s voice sends a heated thrill tingling through Eddie’s nerves. He’s suddenly, deliciously, alight.

“Yeah?”

“ _Yeah_.” Richie extricates his hand from Eddies to return it to his body, running it along his side, pressing hard enough not to tickle, just to please, until it settles on Eddie’s hip and grips. “You look amazing when you’re coming apart like that, Eddie.”

“Mm, fuck.” Eddie presses his hips back, at the same time as Richie presses forward. He can tell that Richie’s starting to feel it, too, hardening slowly in his pants.

“And you looked even better in person,” Richie continues, nosing along the hair at the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine. “I could tell pretty quickly that things were not, uh, going to plan—you had a little bit of a crazed look on your face that I now realize was from you throwing hands with the vibe—but you really did look fucking good.”

“Yeah, that was about the only believable delivery you gave,” Eddie tries to joke, but it comes out breathy. The gasp he lets out does not help his case, when Richie slides his hand forward over the jut of his pelvic bone, scratching fingernails through the coarse hair dusting the crease where thigh meets abdomen. He arches back, Richie pressing open-mouthed kisses along the muscle from neck to shoulder.

“Well, I was using Method acting for that one, drawing from my real-life experiences of FaceTiming my boyfriend,” Richie says softly, breath cascading down over Eddie’s throat and collar bone. “Watching him working himself open to satisfy himself with my toy.”

Eddie swallows. “Yeah, right,” he says, voice a little shaky. “The toy was fine to tide me over, but nothing can _satisfy_ me but the real thing.” He twists his arm back so he can pet at Richie’s side, his lower back, his ass—all of him still, infuriatingly, fully clothed. He slides his hand between them, to the front of Richie’s jeans. He’s hard and thick and hot even through the denim. Eddie squeezes, and Richie jerks against his hand.

“Is that so?” Richie asks, hoarse, into his shoulder.

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “You’ve spoiled me, Rich.”

Richie’s entire body shivers, from head to toe, so fully that Eddie can feel it all along him like aftershocks. Richie moans abruptly against the curve of his neck, cuts himself off by biting down. The wet warmth, the sharpness of his teeth just _there_ , makes Eddie go pleasantly limp and tingly all over. He moans, too.

“You liked me saying that,” Eddie observes wryly, when Richie moves to press more kisses along his winging shoulder blade.

“I did,” Richie admits. “I _want_ to spoil you, Eds. Wanna give you everything you want and more. Wanna know what you want before you even want it, and have it waiting for you all wrapped up with a bow.”

Eddie’s heart is swelling, pumping love painfully through his veins. He wishes he could love like Richie does, with abandon, but all he’s experienced of love are its conditions. Sometimes he feels like all he knows how to do is to take, or to give begrudgingly. He doesn’t even know how to ask, really. He can _demand_ , sure, when he knows what’s right—demand that Richie wash his hands before handling food, for example, or get his flu shot every fall—but not _ask_ , not _request_. This week has been one big, excruciating exercise in asking.

But Richie has been delighted by it, he knows, by Eddie actually _asking_ for once instead of just silently receiving—even if, by his own admission, he didn’t feel he was “right for the part” of what Eddie was asking for.

Which is stupid. All Eddie is asking for is Richie. But if the asking itself is what makes Richie happy, maybe that’s all Eddie needs to do. Ask, and ask, and keep asking, and tell Richie that no matter what Eddie asked for, or what Richie gave, it was enough that he tried. More than enough, he thinks, feeling the ghosting sensation on the scar on his back as Richie presses small, stubbly kisses there. He survived a lifetime of misery and mediocrity and a mortal wound, for fuck’s sake. This is _all_ bonus.

“You’re so good to me, Richie,” Eddie says, and smiles as Richie shivers again, his hand clenching at Eddie’s abdomen.

“Nahh,” says Richie, hiding his face between Eddie’s scapulae.

“You are,” Eddie insists, smoothing his hand over the front of Richie’s jeans, touching his cock through them. “You make me feel so good.”

“ _In the bedroom?_ ” Richie says, exaggerated and salacious.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Yes,” he allows, “but in, uh, other rooms, too. Or not in rooms. Outside.”

“Why, Edward, my stars,” Richie gasps in some Southern Belle voice, “are you suggesting we gain carnal knowledge of each other _out of doors_?”

“Why not?” Eddie shoots back. “You carnally knew yourself in the back seat of a Lyft.”

Richie laughs and draws himself back up to speak into the shell of Eddie’s ear. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “And I believe someone said he needed me to come back home to fuck him with that cock.” And his voice so low it’s almost crackly, reminding Eddie of the static from the telephone, and it sends electricity shooting down the power lines of Eddie’s limbs and nerves and veins, fizzing and sparking, making his cock jump, as hard and erect as a lightning rod, and—

And that’s when Eddie realizes why this is driving him wild, Richie pressed up behind him and talking to him this way. It’s like they’re still on the phone. It’s like that very first night, Richie breathing hot and heavy into his ear, telling him what he wants to do to him, and Eddie is rock hard and coming unglued with need.

“Richie,” he moans, and before he’s even thinking, his fingers are scrabbling at the button of Richie’s jeans.

“ _God_ ,” Richie grunts in response, pulling away just a bit to rip open his fly and yank off his jeans.

And just like on the phone, Eddie _hears_ it (the clink of the metal button, the zip of the fly, the rustle of jeans and t-shirt) and now he _feels_ it (the frantic motion of the bed as Richie wriggles around and kicks them off), but still he doesn’t _see_ it. He remains on his side, hoping that Richie will get the hint and return to spooning him.

Richie seems to finish undressing and the flurry of movement ceases. Eddie doesn’t look back, just prays that staying still will convey what he wants, that he won’t have to say, that Richie will just _know_ —

“Eds…?”

And Richie’s voice sound suddenly so hesitant and uncertain and— _fuck_. What did Eddie _just_ agree with himself? He clenches his eyes shut, and asks, he _asks_ , in a voice that feels far smaller than it should: “Could you spoon me?”

In an instant, Richie is there, instant and enthusiastic gratification, plastered soft and broad and _hot_ along Eddie’s back, hands roaming his skin. “Like this?” Richie asks into his cheekbone.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, arching back into him as Richie’s fingertips dance over his hard cock. “That’s perfect. That’s so good.”

“Fuck, _Eddie_.” And Richie sounds broken by the mere concept of Eddie finding him _good_. Eddie supposes asking for something is easy after all, when Richie gives it to him eagerly and melts with slight praise.

Richie’s mouth is hot on his jaw when he slides his huge hand over Eddie’s dick. The moan he lets out when he discovers it slick with precome is obscene, shredded with lust. It makes Eddie gasp and thrust against Richie’s palm, his hand returning to Richie’s cock where he’s lying heavy against Eddie’s lower back. They both hiss when Eddie grasps it, so thick his fingers can only just meet around it, and Eddie tosses his head back so he and Richie are cheek to cheek, Richie biting gently at his throat.

“God, I’ve missed this,” Eddie confesses, and trembles when Richie groans and twists his hand over him.

“Me, too,” Richie says, hoarse against his neck. “What do you want?”

Eddie doesn’t have to think. “Want you to… to fuck me,” he gasps.

To his surprise, Richie doesn’t immediately release him to fling his arm out, grasping for the lube. Instead, he allows his fingers to wander down Eddie’s shaft, over his tightening balls, to press lightly against him, where he’s still slightly wet from sweat and lubricant, and murmurs kindly, “I thought you said you were hurt.”

“Don’t care,” Eddie says rashly. Then, after a beat: “Go slow.”

Richie kisses his jaw. “Of course.”

Now, Richie does reach for the lube. He has to extricate his other arm from beneath the pillows to upend it over his fingers, and Eddie covers his face with his hand when Richie giggles at the wheeze-fart noise the bottle makes.

“Have I ever told you that you haven’t changed?” Eddie drawls.

Richie grins crookedly at him, slathering his fingers. “I know, I’m still the boy you fell in love with. Isn’t it magical?”

When he returns to Eddie, he presses his hand to Eddie’s ass, his slick middle finger sliding between the flesh there to brush across Eddie’s hole. Eddie can feel he’s still slightly wet from the lube he applied earlier, and his rim is stretched but still tender. Richie’s finger is gentle, though, sliding only over it, not in, as he presses a kiss to Eddie’s shoulder.

“Let me know if anything hurts?” he asks softly.

Eddie nods, heat pooling in his abdomen as Richie gently circles his rim with the pad of his finger. He has to stop himself pressing back, trying to get more, to feel Richie’s slippery fingers enter him. The effort of staying still makes him tremble.

To distract himself, he reaches back over his shoulder, sliding his fingers through Richie’s wavy black hair and fisting in it, at the back of his skull. Richie grunts into his ear and his hips cant forward, pressing his blunt middle finger into Eddie’s hole to the first knuckle.

“ _Hahh_ ,” Eddie breathes, his stomach swooping.

“Ah, fuck,” Richie says, drawing back immediately. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No,” Eddie gasps. “You can— _Please_.”

When Richie presses his finger, slowly, steadily, back inside, Eddie’s entire body _burns_. Richie’s finger is slick and wet and practically lethargic as it slides in millimeter by millimeter, graciously avoiding his sensitive prostate but still making Eddie feel every crease of his skin. He shakes with the effort to hold himself motionless, not because of the pain but because it feels _incredible_. He shudders, longing for Richie’s long finger to sink into him fully, until his knuckles are pressed against his ass.

Once Richie’s finger is seated fully within him, though, Richie doesn’t alter his speed, only reverses course: slowly, dreamily drawing his finger back out until Eddie is squirming on him and whimpering helplessly, his dick leaking down the shaft and dripping onto the comforter.

“ _Richie_ ,” he whines.

Richie smirks against his shoulder. “You said slow.”

“You fucking tease,” Eddie spits.

He presses his open mouth to the skin just below Eddie’s armpit, kissing his lat. “That’s the idea,” he says devilishly.

Eddie groans, releasing the hand in Richie’s hair and burying his face in the pillow as Richie pulls his finger nearly all the way out, only the tip remaining. He feels Richie flexing his hand, braces himself eagerly for the addition of a new finger, and lets out a frustrated cry when Richie only pushes back in with the same one, deliberate and indulgent all at once. Richie snakes his other arm back under the pillow and across Eddie’s collarbone, clasping his shoulder in one strong hand and pulling him tight against Richie, holding his upper body fast while Eddie begins to rock his hips back onto Richie’s finger, abandoning his earlier caution.

“Fuck, Richie, _god_.”

“Yeah? How does that feel?”

“Good,” Eddie pants. “So good.”

“Mm, I bet. You look good, too, baby,” Richie murmurs against his cheek. “Doesn’t hurt?”

“No,” Eddie breathes, shaking his head frantically. “No, _fuck,_ I want more, _please_.”

Mercifully, Richie obliges, sliding another finger in beside the first, and the distant sting makes Eddie remember why they were going slow in the first place but he couldn’t care less, because Richie is holding him and kissing his temple and stretching him slowly and methodically and oh-so-gently, like he asked, and using two fingers to do it, like he _asked_.

“I want you to _fuck_ me like this,” Eddie chokes out, _asking_ , as the backs of Richie’s fingers lightly graze his prostate, and for once he doesn’t even stutter on the word. “From behind.”

Richie’s movements stutter just a bit, just enough for Eddie to know he’s affected him. His voice is ragged as he groans, “God, Eddie, _yes_.”

Richie moves more quickly after that, gently stretching Eddie’s rim on two and then three fingers, careful to avoid Eddie’s prostate, though Eddie is growing less grateful for that and more desperate with each scissor of his fingers, with each prod of Richie’s obviously straining cock at his lower back. Eddie has been avoiding touching his own, but he can tell when Richie looks down at where it’s drooling against his stomach because he groans low in Eddie’s ear and grips him tighter across the chest, sometimes even bites down on the ropey muscle from neck to shoulder, as though he can’t help himself. It makes Eddie’s blood froth and sizzle, electrocuted.

Finally, after what feels like luxurious hours of Richie lovingly, languidly opening him up, Eddie reaches back to slide his hand around the base of Richie’s cock. He’s treated to a groan from Richie.

“I’m ready,” Eddie says, breathlessly. “I want you.”

“Fuck, I’ve never wanted anything else,” Richie rasps back.

Slowly, Richie withdraws. Eddie’s vision is still swimming from the delicious drag of Richie’s fingers, but he’s snapped out of it when he hears the crinkle of a foil wrapper.

“Oh,” he bursts out, twisting to look over his flushed shoulder. “Uh. You don’t… have to.”

Richie is silent. Eddie can practically hear the gears turning.

“Nuh—” It’s strangled, creaky. Richie clears his throat and tries again, but his voice still cracks like a teenager’s: “No-o?”

“Yeah, no,” says Eddie, cheeks blazing. “I, uh, want to feel you.”

Richie lets out another suffocated note and closes the bedside table drawer with a resounding _thud_. Instead, he finds the lube again. He must be just as dazed at the idea of burying his bare cock inside him as Eddie feels from his unhurried fingering because he doesn’t even chuckle when the bottle makes that dumb farting noise. Breathing raggedly, he dribbles a liberal amount onto his cock and slicks it down with his hand before returning once more to Eddie and lining himself up.

“Still let me know if anything starts to hurt,” he says into Eddie’s ear, a note of concern in his voice.

“Mm,” says Eddie, his eyes already rolling back in his head at just the feel of the hot, blunt head of Richie’s cock against his entrance.

When Richie presses in, stars burst in the darkness behind Eddie’s eyelids. It’s so _much_ ; he had forgotten, over the days, just _how_ much. Richie is thick and hard, harder than Eddie has ever felt him, or maybe it’s just the new angle, and despite the nearly endless prep Richie performed, he still feels almost _impossible_. Yet somehow he sinks in, inch by overwhelming inch, pausing at intervals to pet at Eddie’s side, to kiss Eddie’s temple and jaw and neck and whisper sweetly in his ear.

“God, Eds, feel so good,” Richie breathes, nearly slurring, “so fucking good for me, so hot and wet and tight, Eddie, you’re a fucking dream.”

“ _Hnng_ ,” is all Eddie can muster in response.

Richie goes slow with this, too. He digs his fingers into Eddie’s hips and holds him steady, for both of them, as he slides in. He stops before he’s fully enveloped and begins to withdraw again, mimicking the earlier motion of his fingers, and without the condom, the drag of every ridge and vein is _maddening_ , making Eddie gasp and writhe.

He falls limply back against Richie’s chest, and Richie snakes his other arm around him again, clutching Eddie against him, half on top of Richie now. He brushes his thumb over a nipple, and Eddie whines, his hands flying up to wrap around Richie’s hairy forearm, feeling his muscles jump under his palm. Richie’s other hand remains gripping Eddie’s hip, his nails digging stinging crescents into the skin beside Eddie’s pelvic bone, but it doesn’t register as pain, only heightens the feeling of Richie beginning to press back into him, deeper, _deeper_.

Eddie realizes distantly that he could touch himself, so he unhooks one hand from Richie’s arm to slide down his torso and circle his cock. It’s completely soaked; the slide of his hand is effortless.

“ _Fuuuck_ ,” Richie pants against his throat, awestruck, as he pulls back and drives his cock in, deeper yet. “Look at you, you’re— you’re _dripping_ for me.”

“Oh _god_ ,” Eddie moans, his hips jerking. He nearly comes just from those words, but with herculean effort, he reins himself in when he realizes that in his fantasies, Richie said the _same thing_.

The recognition is enough to refocus Eddie, at least a little. The drag of Richie’s cock inside him paired with the drag of his own fist over himself is devastating; he wants to come from it—so, _so_ badly—but he also never wants it to end, wants to live in this overwhelming pleasure for as long as possible.

So he decides to do something about it.

Reluctantly he releases his own dick and pushes back on Richie’s instead, pushes his whole body along Richie’s to press him backwards so he’s lying flat against the bed and Eddie is on top of him, still back to front, still with Richie buried inside. Richie grunts at the change of position but seems to adjust quickly, one hand splayed across Eddie’s scarred chest, the other still gripping his hip, holding him down on Richie’s cock. He lets his knees wing out for leverage and thrusts slowly back into him.

Then Eddie plants his heels in the bed and starts moving on his own.

“Oh, fuck, _fuck_ ,” Richie gasps in his ear, and it sends sparks trailing down Eddie’s spine. They gather at the base of it, near his tailbone, and that same delicious, overwhelming heat begins to build again, every time he meets Richie’s thrusts, grinding himself down onto Richie’s cock.

“Fuck, Rich, so good,” Eddie bites out, gripping his hand around his cock again and stroking, stoking the fire in his gut. “You’re so fucking good to me.”

“ _Eddie,_ ” Richie moans, crumpled, broken, pistoning up into him helplessly.

The new position is incredible: Richie thrusting into him, Richie breathing raggedly in his ear, Richie watching him fuck up into his fist, _watching him_. At this angle, the head of Richie’s cock is sliding over his prostate with nearly every jagged motion, sending Eddie’s mind reeling, gasping, delicious pressure building in his gut. The hand on Eddie’s chest slips farther upward, brushing his throat, and the ghost of pressure there sends Eddie teetering on the edge. He’s so— _so_ close— just, _just_ —

Richie presses his wet mouth to his temple, more a lave of his tongue and lips than a kiss. He gasps, “Eddie, oh god, I can tell you’re— oh _please_ —”

Richie clutches at his hips and presses up, _up_ , hard, grinding into him, against his prostate, and Eddie snaps like a bowstring, coming with a shattered moan all over his hand and stomach, while Richie groans desperately in his ear.

“Oh fuck,” Eddie breathes, his head lolling back onto the pillow beside Richie’s, still moving with Richie’s strong thrusts. He raises one wobbly hand to run through his sweat-drenched hair. “Oh fuck.”

Richie’s motions slow, becoming gentle. He’s nuzzling his nose against Eddie’s cheekbones, his jaw, his eyebrow, wherever he can reach. “Yeah,” he whispers.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Eddie insists, chest heaving. Richie laughs.

After several long moments, he taps at Eddie’s hip with his thumb. “Ready to move? I can finish myself off.”

Eddie swallows, trying to catch his breath. He moves his hands to either side of Richie’s broad chest and hoists himself up into a sitting position. Richie’s cock is still hard inside him and when he moves it shifts a little, licking against him where he’s oversensitive. It reminds him of all those other times before, when Richie’s orgasm would follow right on the heels of his. Richie would jerk with a precious few more staggered thrusts, trying desperately to avoid brushing against Eddie’s overwhelmed prostate, and Eddie would clutch at his shoulders, his ribs, silently begging him to go on, fuck him into oblivion and then keep going. Then Richie would finish and pull out shortly after, rolling off Eddie as though he was afraid the weight of his body was a burden instead of a comfort, and Eddie, who had been skeptical about beginning in the first place, would feel vaguely bereft at its ending.

Now, Eddie shifts until his knees are braced against the bedspread on either side of Richie’s hips. He nudges Richie’s thighs until he brings them together, so Eddie can balance himself there, and then he begins to rock forward and back on Richie’s cock.

“Oh my—” He feels Richie’s fingertips scrabbling at his back, at his ass. “Oh, Eddie, what the fuck, what the _fuck_ —”

Eddie just smiles and grits his teeth and continues moving, lifting up and dropping down, riding Richie’s cock and pulling strangled sounds from him. At first, the pull of Richie inside him is nearly too much, flooding Eddie’s strung-out senses with every accidental brush against that too-sensitive spot. Once, he sits back at a wrong angle and jars it near directly, painful overstimulation spiking up his spine like hitting an open nerve.

But he just pauses, chest heaving, bracing himself on Richie’s thighs, circling his ass down against Richie’s abdomen, and once the blood ceases its rushing in his skull, he begins to listen to the words spilling from Richie’s mouth. They’re even more fragmented than before as Richie falls to pieces beneath him, clinging to his hips.

“Eddie, fuck, I— I can’t— _you_ can’t— the _sight_ of you like this, I, _god_ —”

Then he feels Richie slide his hand over his ass to thumb at Eddie’s slick, loosened rim where it’s stretched around Richie’s thick cock. Eddie whines at the feeling and twists to look over his shoulder.

Today, the lights are on. They have been on this whole time, and because of that Eddie gets to see for the first time how Richie looks when they fuck: absolutely wrecked. His hair is tangled and damp with sweat, his glasses smudged to hell, his face and shoulders and chest flushed under the dark hair matted down by Eddie’s body. When Eddie locks eyes with his, he sees Richie’s are blown wide, nearly black, wild and glinting, and in that moment, he looks just like he did in all of Eddie’s fantasies.

“Does it feel good?” Richie asks, destroyed.

Eddie’s heart and stomach and whole _body_ clench in pleasure at the vulnerability, the eagerness to please, the love and lust in Richie’s dumbfounded gaze. In answer, Eddie slowly, silently, raises up, reveling in the way Richie’s eyes roll back in his head, how his jaw goes utterly slack, how his breath catches in his throat. Then he slides back down, just as slowly as Richie did to him, until Richie is once more buried to the hilt within him.

“So good,” Eddie chokes out. “Love you, Rich.”

Richie’s eyes burst open, still rolling a little, landing blearily, incredulously, on Eddie. He’s panting, gathering his bearings, opening his mouth to speak, when Eddie sees tears beginning to well in the corners of his eyes and decides to start moving again in earnest.

He turns back around and leans forward to plant his hands on the bedspread between Richie’s knees. Then he rocks back, using his hands and knees as leverage, and Richie _really_ begins to disintegrate, writhing and bucking beneath him in aborted motions, as though he’s trying desperately not to fuck Eddie senseless.

One of Richie’s hands stays on his ass, pushing and pulling Eddie off his cock, the thumb brushing at his sensitive rim. The other slides down and under to palm at his balls, and the new sensation somehow grounds Eddie, allowing him to appreciate the drag of Richie’s cock anew. His own dick hasn’t fully softened, only lost the desperate hardness of his first orgasm, and for a moment he considers gripping it again, seeing how far that gets him ( _talk about_ _bonus_ , the Richie voice in his head blurts out)—but then Richie begins to moan even more brokenly, in his rhythm stuttering, faltering. Richie is close, is trying desperately to stave off his orgasm to linger as long as possible on the sight and feel and sound of Eddie riding him.

Then, he bites out, “Fuck, Eddie, I’m so close, you gotta—” and he taps madly at Eddie’s hip, his lower back, nudging at him. “You _gotta_ —”

“Richie,” Eddie pants over his shoulders, “I said I want to feel you.”

At that, Richie’s hips jerk and buck beneath him, his fingers digging into Eddie’s hips, as he gasps, “Oh my fuck, Eddie, you—? Eddie, _Eddie_ —!”

The cry Richie lets out as he comes is nearly a howl. They’ve only ever fucked with a condom before, and Eddie groans at the feeling of Richie coming inside him bare, hot and wet and slippery immediately as Eddie continues to fuck him through it, Richie’s come smoothing the drag of his cock inside him. Eddie bites his lip as he rocks back over and over, beginning to recover now, no longer feeling overstimulated but needy again. He’s starting to feel that familiar tug in his abdomen, that building heat.

“Eddie,” Richie hisses, batting at his sides with floppy hands. “Eddie, I can’t, it’s too much.”

“I think I could go again,” Eddie bites out.

“You what?”

“You could make me come again, Richie, you feel _that good_.”

“Oh my— Okay, okay, I can try—” Richie wheezes when Eddie sits back on his dick and grinds. He replaces his hands on Eddie’s hips for a moment, only the slightest touch, not yanking him back anymore, just to guide.

Eddie presses back, shocked by how the too-wet, too-slippery feel of Richie’s come is heightening everything for him. His dick is stiffening further at the feel, and the completely fucked-out noises Richie is choking on are urging his pleasure higher and higher. He keeps his movements small but even that seems to be driving Richie out of his mind. Beneath him, Richie lets out a helpless, guttural _hngh_ with nearly every rock of Eddie’s hips. Choking on an _Eds, fuck, Eds_ , he plasters one big, sweltering palm to Eddie’s shifting upper back and dragging his blunt fingertips down his spine, flint and steel, rekindling the fire in his gut.

Mind reeling, breathing hard, Eddie slides one hand down between them, feeling where they’re connected. They’re both drenched, coated in a sticky, wet mess of lube and sweat and come. It’s _filthy_ , and it makes heat clench and burn in Eddie’s stomach.

When he touches Richie’s dick, though, he can feel that it’s softening quickly. He nearly whines in frustration.

“Fuck, Richie,” he says, encouraging, praising, like before, “it feels so good like this.”

“Eds,” is all Richie can respond, shattered. “ _Eds_.”

Soon Eddie is rigid as iron and shaking all over, hands and thighs trembling and twitching. He feels strung out and desperate, knowing there’s something more just out of his reach. He grips a come-covered hand around his cock and begins stroking hard, nearly stripping it. Somewhat distantly, he begins to hear a low, wavery whine, building in volume, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s coming from _him_ , from inside his stitched-together ribs, but he can’t bring himself to care. He feels like he’s spinning out, needs something to ground him, and Richie’s dick is nearly completely soft.

“Fuck,” Richie groans hoarsely. He snakes a hand down between them, against his limp cock, grasping at it almost despairingly. “ _Fuuuck_.”

“ _Richie_ ,” Eddie whimpers, almost delirious, rocking against the back of Richie’s hand.

“Sorry, Eds, I—” Panting, Richie drags his hand back up to palm roughly at Eddie’s ass. “I know, Eds, you’re— you’re seem so close, and you look so good, and I want to, I _want_ to, but—”

“Just—” Eddie gasps, eyes unfocusing, longing for Richie’s dick, his fingers, the fucking _vibrator_. “You can— just _anything_ —”

“Fuck, okay—”

Then Richie’s hands shift, pressing hard into Eddie’s ass and shoving him off, forward. Taken aback, Eddie barely manages catches himself on one hand, still shaking. He has one second in which to wonder why, to feel contrite, to think he should apologize for using Richie’s body like that— and then Richie’s palms are spreading his ass and Richie’s tongue is pressing into his sloppy, fucked-out hole.

“Rich, ohh _fuck_ , that’s—” Eddie moans, an obscene symphony combined with Richie’s own overwhelmed grunts and the wet noises of Richie’s mouth. It feels _unbelievable_ , Richie’s tongue sliding around his rim, licking (Eddie shivers) _his own come_ out of him. It shouldn’t be hot. It should be disgusting, Eddie should be disgusted, but to his shock the thought only drives him further to the brink, heat sparking and crackling at the base of his spine, where Richie’s face is crushed against him.

Then Richie presses three full fingers all the way into Eddie, beside his mouth, still licking around and between them, lapping at him, and how effortlessly they sink in, the filthy squelching sound Richie’s tongue and lips and fingers make inside as they curl and rub at his abused prostate—it sets the fire in him blazing, his entire body and mind going up in shivering flames as he comes again with Richie’s name on his lips. His elbow buckles and he falls forward onto the bed, the side of his face mashed into the bedspread, muffling his moaned _ohh_ s, his hand wringing his cock, covered in him and Richie both.

When Eddie’s head stops spinning, when his nerves reactivate and he can feel detailed sensation again rather than just overwhelmed bursting pleasure, he realizes that Richie has remained where he is, mouthing tenderly, soothingly, at Eddie’s ass this whole time. He’s removed his fingers but left the flat of his hand there, a sweet, grounding pressure against his rim that makes Eddie feel a fond warmth flooding his veins, pumping from his pounding heart. His chest is heaving and he feels like all of his bones have been replaced by Jell-O and he’s drenched in all kinds of bodily fluids. He’s never felt better in his _life_.

Richie presses a sweet kiss against the inside of his cheek. “Think you can go again?” he asks huskily, teasing.

Eddie barks out a shaky laugh and falls all the way forward, away from the warmth of Richie’s face and hand. He rolls onto his back, out of the considerable wet spot on the bedspread, and looks blearily up at Richie. He’s leaning back on his hands, grinning lopsidedly in Eddie’s direction. His glasses are pushed up into his hair, the lower half of his face is a red, glossy mess, and when he lifts a hand to rub over it, Eddie can see three fingers are just as shiny wet. His eyes are gleaming. He looks exhausted and enchanted and exuberant all at once.

“Wow,” Eddie finally says, his voice cracking.

“Yeah?” Richie says eagerly, still grinning.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. He sucks in a breath and when he lets it out shakily, he feels suddenly like he could curl up and sleep for about three years.

“Was that as good as what we had planned?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Better,” he says. “You know it was better.”

“I had my suspicions.” Richie lets his glasses drop back onto his nose and reaches a hand over to run along Eddie’s sweaty thigh, glancing away almost shyly. “I had no idea you could do that.”

“I didn’t really, either,” Eddie admits. “It just felt so good, and I was still pretty hard, and I felt like I could keep going, so I did.” He chews his lip. “How was it for you?”

“Pfft, amazing,” Richie says immediately, smiling widely, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Eddie furrows his brow a little. “Even when I kept, uh, fucking you after you came?”

“Yeah. I mean, it was kind of overwhelming at first, but then I thought, ‘It’s like he’s just using my body to get himself off’ and…” He closes his eyes and breathes in, like that concept is too stunning for words. He opens them again to look directly into Eddie’s. “You riding my cock was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I wish I could have gone all night for you, Eds.”

Eddie shivers pleasantly at his words, his gaze; an aftershock, he thinks. “Well,” he says slowly, “you eating me out was pretty fucking good too.”

If possible, Richie grins even wider. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.” He squeezes Eddie’s knee. “We’re learning so much about each other, Eds,” he says cheerily.

Eddie snorts, drawling, “Yeah, you’re an eager-to-please, big-dicked praise-whore who wants me to use his body like my own personal dildo.”

“That’s-a me!” Richie says, grinning. “And _you’re_ apparently a multi-orgasmic sex fiend who loves getting his ass ate.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “And that’s-a _me_ ,” he drawls, smiling in spite of himself.

Richie raises an eyebrow. “Are you still the kind of sex fiend who wants to change the sheets and shower right away, or can we cuddle a bit first?”

Eddie looks down at the wet spot on the bed, at his hand and dick and thighs coated in lube and bodily fluids. Then he looks up at Richie, in a similar state but eager nonetheless to have Eddie pressed against him again.

Eddie sighs, shifting.

“Cuddle for ten minutes,” he says, and Richie’s face lights up, “then shower.”

“See? This is why I said you should be the boss,” says Richie, lying back on his side and beckoning with a lazy hand for Eddie to lie against his front again, as usual.

Eddie shimmies sleepily up the bed but pauses before curling up against Richie. He cocks his head, considering him.

Richie lifts an eyebrow, eyes unsure. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing,” says Eddie, as he places a hand on Richie’s sternum and presses him onto his back. He tucks himself under Richie’s arm, pressing his front to Richie’s sweaty side, and kisses his cheek. “I just realized I’d rather be looking at you. Now that you’re back. Now that I can.”

Richie’s face twitches with disbelief. Then it bursts into a broad, watery smile, his eyes filling quickly. He squeezes Eddie tightly against him. “I know the feeling, Eds,” he murmurs against his damp hair.

Eddie settles himself against Richie, draping an arm over his broad chest, taking in the sweat, the come, the coarse hair, the mess they’ve made of each other, so much better than the messes they were before. Looking at him now, touching him now, Eddie knows there will be times, and too soon, when he won’t be able to look or to touch, when they will have to learn again to (he snorts into Richie’s chest, rolling his eyes at himself) _fuck_ on the phone. But he knows, too, that those times will be temporary. This, right here, is the perennial, the default, the ever after: the two of them, content and tangled together, Richie and Eddie, and that’s perfect. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much to [kayla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sightetsound/pseuds/sightetsound), for being the first to read it in its (way too long) entirety; to [jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/pseuds/camerasparring), for giving me their advice on longform porn; and, as always, to [jane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jajs/pseuds/Jajs), for the beta read, despite my multiple apologies that this was extremely dong-heavy material. Also big shoutout to the “wet eddie rights” gc (formerly the “slutty richie rights” gc) for having to hear all of my anxiety thoughts about this fic for the past month. 
> 
> i'm [@tempestbreak_](https://twitter.com/tempestbreak_) on twitter if you wanna talk to me!


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